Twitter directory: our look on how it should work

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader (1869 – 1948)

There are a lot of twitter directories on Internet today. Here I would want to check few most popular ones and provide our look on good directory.

Structure of directory

1. plain list of categories
There is a number of categories on top page, user select one category, and browse all members in that category.

example from: [http://justtweetit.com/]

disadvantages:
a. enormous list of categories on main page.
b. cutting the list of categories creates too broad categories where too many entries are placed.

2. tags for naming of entries
For every entry user can provide number of tags, then users can select appropriate tag.
In theory user has ability to select most narrow meaning and thereby limit number of entries.

example from: [http://wefollow.com/twitter/tags/]

disadvantages:
a. there are still too broad tags like ‘celebrity’ with enormous amount of entries.
b. number of tags, so it is hard for user to select most narrow tag.

3. search engine style
Like in search engine user provides search term, and system search for similar entries.

example from: [http://twitdir.com/]

disadvantages:
a. user should know twitter name.
And if so user can use build-in twitter search [http://search.twitter.com]. But what if he/she wants to find for example pop style singer? Then user needs directory again!

Administration of directory

All current directories provide possibility to any user to add himself/herself and so suffer from spammers and common(uninterested) users. There should be some quality criteria and some administrators that ensure continues quality of twitter IDs and correctness of provided information.

As it is money consuming tactic directory should make some money to cover costs or use open-source model where authorized users can check entities as it works in DMOZ directory [http://www.dmoz.org/help/become.html]

Will follow Gandhi’s idea

After some discussions within our company we have decided finally to create our own directory of twitter users.
We are taking into account disadvantages of current directories, and so our directory:
*has tree structure to reduce complexity, and size of categories
*uses moderators that ensure quality of twitter IDs before they add them.

Start exploration at: [http://twitwho.net].

Of course there is unlimited ways to improve everything, and so we are open to any suggestions and complains:
helion-prime’s twitter: [http://twitter.com/helionprime]
twitwhohq’s twitter: [http://twitter.com/twitwhohq]

Tags: twitter, twitwho