Twitter did an interesting thing this morning with its @magicrecs recommendation service. It introduced a text-based menu system that you access via DM, which lets you tune the recommendations that you get via push notification or message.
The new system has you DM the @magicrecs account with a ‘hi’ or ‘hello’, and presents you with a few actions. The basic ones are these:
- tweets on/off
- users on/off
- help
These allow you to toggle the recommendations of tweets which the MagicRecs system deems noteworthy. Generally by velocity of and network relationship to the retweets from people you follow. You can also toggle off the user recommendations, which tell you when a bunch of people you interact with follow an account.
You’re also prompted to give feedback on the service:
- Provide feedback:
- good
- bad
Twitter’s bot says that this will help them improve the MagicRecs service. Earlier this year, Twitter began experimenting with MagicRecs as a Twitter account which gave DM tips on interesting accounts or tweets. It was later folded into the product itself as a push notification that can be toggled on or off.
This new DM menu feature allows you to fine-tune the recommendations that you get in at least a couple of small ways. If a lot of people use it, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see an option to turn tweets or users on or off that appear inside the Twitter apps themselves.
Twitter’s experiments with breaking news and recommendations via push notification continue with @eventparrot, as well. The addition of options to tweak what MagicRecs shows you indicates that it’s still experimenting with how granular to make these recommendations and which type users value.
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