As has been mentioned in the post about the onboarding process, it gives you suggestions of who to follow when you sign up (first as a random list of celebs, followed by another list of big names in broad categories likes music/technology et) – but doesnt give you context for why.
To me twitter is an “interest” network, as in, I want to find out more about x or keep up with the latest on y etc – and I think this is the biggest failure of twitter ie not communication this aspect of its value proposition effectively.
Ironically, Twitter themselves have called themselves an information network and not a social network.
So, if before making suggestions on people to follow if it were to
a) position itself (better than it currently has) as a way to get massive value from keeping up on things of interest and
b) ask users to type in, say, 5 things there were interested in – and then serve up suggestions of who to follow…
… this would not only personalize the feed but be immediately relevant which should raise engagement/retention etc.
I think such an approach would get users to their aha moment about twitter much quicker.
Add to this, the most powerful features of Twitter which most people still don't use/know about is Lists. So once you were onboarded and had say 10+ people you were following, if you were prompted to segregate these people into lists by topic, that would make consuming twitter 10x easier than it is.
It seems that at times twitter still behaves as if it was something only the technorati (early adopters) use – who will figure things out. That is clearly not the case anymore.
To me twitter is an “interest” network, as in, I want to find out more about x or keep up with the latest on y etc – and I think this is the biggest failure of twitter ie not communication this aspect of its value proposition effectively. Ironically, Twitter themselves have called themselves an information network and not a social network.
So, if before making suggestions on people to follow if it were to a) position itself (better than it currently has) as a way to get massive value from keeping up on things of interest and b) ask users to type in, say, 5 things there were interested in – and then serve up suggestions of who to follow… … this would not only personalize the feed but be immediately relevant which should raise engagement/retention etc. I think such an approach would get users to their aha moment about twitter much quicker.
Add to this, the most powerful features of Twitter which most people still don't use/know about is Lists. So once you were onboarded and had say 10+ people you were following, if you were prompted to segregate these people into lists by topic, that would make consuming twitter 10x easier than it is.
It seems that at times twitter still behaves as if it was something only the technorati (early adopters) use – who will figure things out. That is clearly not the case anymore.