Suggestion to Twitter: think Australian, start here

Lists are a way to group people outside your typical friendship groups to these topics. It also foreshadows the eventual Twitter business model of Real Time Search - Where 60,000 messages sent about the Hey Hey It’s Saturday return, within 2 hours of the show screening, are later searched for by nostalgic TV fans and mined by market research firms on behalf of advertising clients.

Twitter’s goal is two-fold; by enabling and seeding initial lists its members will self-organise into useful segments that enable them to discover useful content and thus a better search experience relative to Google. Second, the commercially attractive lists and its related users, hashtags, and keywords can then be packaged up to online advertisers.

Twitter has one major problem with using Lists as a trojan horse for its Real Time Search Engine World Domination Plan. The Lists feature builds upon Twitter’s (dismal) Suggestions Feature that provides tickboxes for newly registered users to follow. As well as leading to hugely (inflated) numbers of followers for the Ashton Kutcher’s and Oprah’s of this increasingly mainstream 140 character group rich messaging world, Suggestions has had no geographic localisation, leading to a very North American Celebrity bias.

So influential bloggers having been asking of Twitter, with its recent $100m capital raising and potential $30m still in bank from last round, what it should do with the money, and whether features such as Suggested Users could be done better.

Just as Google, ninemsn, and Yahoo7 offer a local start page for their services in Australia, Twitter needs the same approach outside the US. When new Australian users sign up to Twitter, the default Suggestions and Lists should include a heavy weighting of Australians. There is only so much Oprah and Ashton we can all take. Even one Australian. We know that Bill Clinton likes K-Rudd!

The Australian Twitter Suggested Users List

While Lists are still Coming Soon (and I haven’t got around to turning my full list into Tweepml ! See some examples of non Twitter.com originating Australian Twitter lists here) Here’s a sample of Suggestions for Australian Twitter Users :

Why not join 91,266 others and start following our Prime Minister - twitter.com/KevinRuddPM

He is certainly more popular than the Opposition Leader with his 16,303 followers- twitter.com/TurnbullMalcolm

In fact, Malcom might need help from Jessica, one half of The Veronicas, with 91,414 followers - http://twitter.com/Jessicaveronica

And if Malcom could get The Veronicas to throw in galpal Ruby’s 29,750 followers - he would be well ahead of the Ruddster - http://twitter.com/RubyRose1

While we’re on The 7pm Project (10,961 followers of its own), Hughesy can double-down on Ruby’s numbers and then some with 67,821 followers - http://twitter.com/dhughesy

Not yet cracking the 10,000 threshold is cardigan friendly co-host Charlie Pickering with 8290 followers - http://twitter.com/charliepick

It’s not just Ch10 talent invading Twitter - Ben Fordham has 2760 members following his off-air tweets - http://twitter.com/BenFordham

It’s not just Politicians or TV folk, Twitter has a huge concentration of journalists and magazine types. Check Erica Bartle’s http://twitter.com/satchelgirl. But Matriarch 2.0 goes to MamaMia.com.au - Followed by 9653 at http://twitter.com/miafreedman

Given their afternoon radio ratings dominance, The Boys were late to Twitter (their Rove mate Ryan Shelton has almost 20k followers as well), but have still quickly picked up 22,799 followers - http://twitter.com/HamishandAndy

Even if your morning radio show doesn’t work (also check Adam Richard’s Fabulous tweets), you still get to keep your twitter account and 10,430 followers - http://twitter.com/MyfWarhurst

Scott Dooley is just one of the many pre-sellout Triple-J hosts with over 11,350 followers to http://twitter.com/triplejdools

As a daily blogger at the Australian Defamer.com.au, sometimes brekky guest on JJJ, regular late night request DJ at RRR and always funny tweeter, Jess McGuire is a Gen-Y MyfWarhurst before all that bad stuff happened with Strauchnie. Share her with 1325 others @ http://twitter.com/jessmcguire

Mr Gunsberg’s photography and tweets are probably more interesting than his Mathieson less hosting of a show which has denigrated into bad karaoke. His 6500+ followers is close to 3 times what Australian Idol’s official twitter has - which probably somes it up. http://twitter.com/_andrew_g

With 5500 followers, Ricki-Lee Coulter is like Andrew G - multiple times more popular on Twitter, than the show she appears in. The Court of Twitter has spoken : http://twitter.com/THErickilee

Style and fashion magazines are thriving on Twitter (try http://twitter.com/fluoromag for a new hip design rag), Frankie has 7902 hipsters on direct message call - http://twitter.com/frankieMagazine

The Sunday Telegraph’s Ros Reines is plugged into gossip like no-one else. Twitter gives a real-time outlet for the word - http://twitter.com/tabloidterror

Fashion shows, news, runways, latest releases never stop. The best goes into the monthly magazines. 4850 followers are getting it hourly @ http://twitter.com/marie_claire_au

Not to be left behind, almost 4000 followers to Vogue Australia showcasing the latest luxury fashion + lifestyles - http://twitter.com/vogueoz

Over 5200 followers to the latest Cosmo stories served up in text message bite sized - http://twitter.com/CosmopolitanAU

Shameless plug here - I’m currently working on modelfeed.com, but here we go: Many of tomorrow’s supermodels such as Nikki Phillips (also on Twitter) from Australia are on Modelfeed.com - And Twitter is a good place to build your personal brand, not to mention showcasing hard work, such as doing bikini shoots over winter - Check out http://twitter.com/modelfeed

It’s not all Style + Fashion Mags on Twitter, Anthill went online only for the business market awhile back and continue to grow. Over 5000 followers @ http://twitter.com/AnthillMagazine

Marketing Magazine are also very active (also check B+T on twitter for advertising), delivering daily links to over 3870 followers @ http://twitter.com/MarketingMag

Tim Burrowes covers “everything under Australia’s media and marketing umbrella” and via Mumbrella does it very well to 6660 followers : http://twitter.com/mumbrella

With summer coming up, Cricket Australia would want to get more than the 2200 followers they have on Twitter - Also they will need to manage protocol with it’s players, brought on by opener Philip Hughes announcing he was dropped via Twitter, oops. http://twitter.com/CricketAus

If Tech is more your thing, then ZD-Net have the latest news @ http://twitter.com/zdnetaustralia

If it’s Australian Apple talk you want, then join the other 2255 followers to http://twitter.com/mactalk

Who doesn’t like a bargain, and Ozbargain crowdsource the best Aussie deals, whether in shop bricks + mortar or ones that are a click away : http://twitter.com/ozbargain

We like to keep the bastards honest, and The Bank Channel uses Twitter to monitor the Big 4 Banks: http://twitter.com/thebankchannel

Australians showed they love the intersection of food, television and social media with #Masterchef being not only the highest rated TV show, but also probably the largest Australian tweeted TV show. Check Grab Your Fork and Chocolate Suze but Ed Charles with over 2200 followers is Twitter’s Matt Preston http://twitter.com/tomatom

For those that live and breathe TV, this is “where the fans run the show.”: 2380 Followers to http://twitter.com/TVdotcomAU

Ben Barren has spent 15 years working in nothing but the online industry. He is currently working on www.modelfeed.com. His blog is at benbarren.com