Twitter’s ability to aggregate and trend conversation is one of its core competencies. In fact, I would go as far as to say that right now, Twitter’s Trending Topics (TTT) is its most powerful feature. Where else can you see what millions of people are talking about at a particular point in time?<p>Despite the powerful mechanism, TTT has become a feature of diminishing value. Why? It’s simple:<p>Twitter’s Trending Topics Promotes Group Think.<p>twittergraphEvery single Twitter user sees the same exact same TTT when they log into their account. This makes it all too easy chime in to the ongoing debate. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily — but it sure doesn’t help bring fresh, informative content to the forefront.<p>Additionally, there appears to be an inverse relationship between the number of Twitter users and the overall value of posts. In other words, as the number of Twitter users rises, the odds of reading a worthwhile tweet diminishes. This is one negative outcome to the “network effect” that Twitter has yet to address.<p>Do You Care About TTT?<p>This screenshot (pictured to the right) shows an example of TTT taken Sunday 7/19/09 22:00 EST. Sixty percent (6/10) of the topics are related to various TV programs being shown during that time. Granted, it’s a Sunday night and news stories are not exactly top priority, but still, it would be nice to see some more diversity.<p>What I Would Like To See:<p><pre><code> * group topics
* “location-aware” topics
* more filtering mechanisms
* more diversity</code></pre>