Twitter’s “Tailored Suggestions” Will Use Widget & Button Data To Make Better Recommendations

Currently new Twitter users visit the site and are all recommended nearly the same accounts to follow.  This will soon be changing thanks to new “tailored suggestions.”  So not everyone will be advised to follow Justin Bieber, Katy Perry or one of the Kardashians.  The new functionality will match up top accounts with information collected from the user.  So those that like sports might not have Paris Hilton recommended to them.

When displaying the list of tailored suggestions, a list of tweets from the accounts can be viewed to provide a better sampler platter for the user:

Current users will also see this new functionality as well by clicking on the preview page or viewing the suggestions in the left sidebar:

One of the surprising ways  that Twitter will custom-tailor their suggestions is to look at a user’s history in the Twitter ecosystem.  This means that Twitter can use data from widgets and buttons to help determine accounts users may like to follow.  Much like Pandora, Twitter will use account following data with websites that users visit in order to provide smarter suggestions.

Twitter also states that this is optional and that they support Do Not Track.  The official announcement included the following:

“For those who don’t want to tailor Twitter, we offer ways to turn off this collection. As the Federal Trade Commission’s CTO, Ed Felten, mentioned earlier today, we support Do Not Track (DNT), which is reflected in our privacy policy as one of the ways you can indicate your preference. If you have DNT enabled in your browser settings, we will not collect the information that enables this feature, so you won’t see any tailored suggestions. We hope that our support of DNT highlights its importance as a privacy tool for consumers and creates even more interest and wider adoption across the web.”

This functionality will be tested “in a number of countries around the world.”  Want to get it to start viewing personalization?  Then sign up to get started today.  Want to opt out?  Then head on over to DNT and opt out.