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The power of suggestion is an amazing thing.

The first thing that new Twitter users encounter on the microblogging platform has traditionally been a list of "suggested users" - twenty users that Twitter has handpicked as being "interesting people to follow" and, they've always maintained, a good group of people to start out following on Twitter.

There are many problems with that system of suggested users. The list of suggested users is mostly comprised of celebrities, and most of them don't do much in the way of engaging in active conversation. They tend to treat Twitter as a broadcast system, instead of a dialogue, giving new Twitter users the impression that no one cares what they have to say.

The other problem with that list of suggested users is that it doesn't really work. Anil Dash, one "normal" person on that list, has discussed the problems with the list in detail in his blog post, Life on the List. He says that although he gets hundreds of followers a day because he's on the list, almost none of them engage in active conversations with him. They follow because Twitter suggests that they do so, and then they go off and find their own people to follow, or they quit.

Twitter announced this week that they're going to change all of that by completely revamping the suggested users system, and, in a word, it's the biggest change that the microblogging platform has ever announced.

The way the new system works is this: Twitter users sign up, and then they're asked to select from a list of topical interests - interests they want to pursue on Twitter. Instead of simply suggesting a stock list of users, Twitter instead uses some complex algorithms to suggest users that actively tweet about those topics - meaning that the entire system of suggested users just went dynamic, and meaning that all of the old problems associated with the suggested users have just been shattered.

Why is it "the biggest change that the microblogging platform has ever announced?" Because of one simple statistic. 60% of new Twitter users quit within the first month. Why? Probably because they can't find what they're looking for. With the new suggested users system, that 60% of users will be given actual meaningful suggestions - they'll be connected to the people they need to be connected with, as soon as they sign up for the service.

It's going to dramatically increase Twitter's retention, and it's going to create an entire galaxy of new connections between people who share the same interests - effectively deepening and strengthening the connections that existing Twitter users already have. Most importantly, it's going to end the trend of a small handful of selected celebrities dominating Twitter and give the power back to the other 99.99% of Twitter users.

Not convinced? Watch Twitter over the next few weeks. If you're a Twitter user who tweets actively about a particular topic, don't be at all surprised to find a slew of new Twitter users following you - Twitter users who share the same interests as you do.

Like Twitter says, the power of suggestion is an amazing thing.