While Twitter's user base continues to grow at a heady clip, the service is running into a major problem stemming from the increasing number of people that Twitter users are now following. The challenge derives from the lack of an easy solution to filter out interesting conversations (#hashtags) and the people participating in those conversations (first party sources.) I currently follow more than 800 people, the vast majority of which, I am disinclined to decide which filter to apply to them. To me, and, in my estimation, others, this seems more of a problem waiting for a brilliant solution built by a lightning smart Twitter engineer than an item which needs to be placed on my personal "To Do List."
AUTOMATIC GROUPING OF USERS CURRENTLY FOLLOWED
The first thing Twitter should do is to build an algorithm which gives users an option of filtering everyone they follow into separate groups ("Lists") as they are currently known automatically.
Additionally, in order that things don't keep getting out of control in terms of people following a thousand users without grouping them, all new follows should require a grouping label as well. Those Twitter users who are merely attempting to boost their Twitter following by doing mass follows will be annoyed, but those people are most likely not reading their Twitter feed anyways.
In my opinion, a more apt metaphor than "List" would be to group people by how users decided to follow most people in the first place: interests. Everyone moderately interested in the entertainment industry tends to follow Ryan Seacrest and Kim Kardashian. Ryan and Kim should be grouped automatically into the "Entertainment Interest" and should be available by one click.
A GEOSPATIAL METAPHOR APPROACH TO TWITTER NAVIGATION
A proposal for Twitter's next generation user experience is included in the slides at the following link. The user flows as well as some monetization ideas are included.
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