When Twitter's "Who to Follow" feature launched at the beginning of this month, it was met with relatively little fanfare. That's probably because it currently exists only on the Twitter website; the API for the new "Suggested Users" feature set hasn't yet been released to developers, although Twitter promises that's in the works.

Still, though, Twitter's "Who to Follow" feature is an absolute game changer for a microblogging platform that's been often accused of featuring a very low signal-to-noise ratio - in other words, it's always been hard for people to sift through the mountain of Twitter users to find the ones that interest them the most. If the new feature works as it's supposed to, all of that it going to change moving forward - Twitter users should find it easier and easier to identify active, relevant Twitter users who match their interests.

The feature currently works in a few different ways. When you log in and view your Twitter feed, you'll see a small block on the righthand side of the screen, with the heading "Who to Follow." Beneath that are listed a couple of Tweeple who Twitter has decided you'd be interested in following, based on a combination of factors, including people you already follow, and the people that they follow. Click the "View All" button or browse to http://twitter.com/invitations/twitter_suggests and you'll see a much longer list of people you might be interested in following. You can follow them from that page with a single click, making it easier than ever to get connected to like-minded Tweeple.

Of course, this feature works best when you're already following people that discuss topics of interest to you. When you first start out on Twitter, you might not get as good recommendations from this feature as when you've been using it for a month and you've already identified a handful of users who discuss the topics you like to hear about. That's where another feature comes in: the "Similar Users" aspect of the new suggested users system.

View any Twitter user's profile and you'll see another block - a list of suggested Twitter users who have a lot in common with the person whose profile you're currently viewing. So when you find one person you like, you're going to be able to find a few more, and so on, and so on, until you've put together a good-sized group of people who talk about what you want to talk about. It's a fairly organic system that promises to help get new users up and off the ground and to bring old users back into the fold by providing them with fresh content and users.

All in all, the "Who to Follow" feature is going to be a great way for Twitter to improve user engagement, a problem which has always plagued the site. By keeping users abreast of new users and undiscovered people talking about the things that they're interested in, Twitter has created another touchpoint with users, another way to make sure they keep coming back. In the endless battle for social network supremacy, that might turn out to be a game changer.