Twitter pulls the plug on its 'Users List'

Date published: 11/21/2009

By PATRICK MAY

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

SAN JOSE, Calif.

Seeking to soothe the tweeting masses, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says the micro-blogging darling of the Internet would soon jettison its handpicked and widely scorned "Suggested Users List."

Intended as a tool for newcomers to quickly find other Twitter users to "follow," the list of rap stars, politicos and TV stars was seen by many as capricious and an unfair plug for celebrities who already have more celebrity than they know what to do with.

"That list will be going away" Stone told reporters at a conference in Malaysia. "In its stead will be something that is more programmatically chosen, something that actually delivers more relevant suggestions."

Translated as a "tweet," those 140-character text-bursts that are the coin of Twitter's realm, Stone's statement might have read: "you hate it; we get it; stand by while we figure out a new system."

Controversial right out of the gate when it was introduced earlier this year, the list was blasted by companies jealous of competitors that had made the cut, by political watchdogs who claimed it favored Democrats over Republicans, and by everyday users who felt the tool was superficial in delivery and undemocratic in design.

"It kind of read like a tabloid list," said Sausalito marketing professional Rod Bauer, an early adopter of Twitter. "It kept changing, but it's sort of 'who's in the news' with people like Paris Hilton, as opposed to, say, leaders in stem-cell research or sustainable farming. Some of these celebrities have PR people blogging for them, so what's the point of following someone who's not even writing their own tweets?"

Some critics likened a place on the list to having Twitter cut you a check, since more followers equals more traffic to Web sites mentioned in tweets, which can equal more revenues from on-site ads. One study showed that a user who made the list gained an average of 53,000 new followers after a week and 170,000 in the first month.

Fueling the resentment, said Mark Glaser, executive editor for PBS's online site MediaShift, was that "you couldn't tell how anyone was chosen for the list, and Twitter never explained it. Inside techie people who had been on Twitter from the start were suddenly passed over for celebrities and they felt that was unfair to them."

Actually, Stone did "explain" the process in a blog post back in March, but it was fairly vague and included the Twitter staff doing "a gut check."

Glaser, who has written about the list, said his biggest complaint "was that Twitter employees were put on it. So you'd see something like 'Jenny from Twitter' has 230,000 followers and you're thinking how did that happen?"

On Twitter all day Monday it was Ding-Dong! The list is dead!

"I'm glad," one user tweeted. "Got stuck with Kim Kardashian for a week."

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Date published: 11/21/2009