Every week there seems to be some new A-list blogger criticizing Twitter's Suggested User's List which is a selection of celebrities and brands that are suggested to new Twitter users as people the user might like to follow. This week it's Robert Scoble with You’re not on Twitter’s suggested user list but you are in good company that points out a number of interesting celebrities and brands that aren't on the list. Last week Dave Winer asked The SUL as a tool to control news?

I've had my issues with the SUL mainly from the perspective of how it ends up presenting Twitter to new users. When my wife joined Twitter I'd have loved it if the service had used integration with Facebook, Windows Live, MySpace, etc to suggest people who she already knew who were on Twitter. Instead the service prioritized pitching that she follow Shaquille O'Neal, Dell Outlet stores, NBC's Today Show and Jessica Simpson's kid sister. To find me on Twitter, my wife had to ask me for my Twitter handle in person. I felt like we were back in the dark ages of social networking.

In retrospect, not doing what I preferred them to do shows a lot of insight. It prevents the site from being viewed as yet another service where you have a duplicated social graph and thus has to compete head to head with the Facebooks and MySpaces of the world. Instead it pitches Twitter as a sort of user friendly RSS reader where you connect with your favorite celebrities and brands instead of another place where you get status updates from people who you're already getting status updates from in Facebook.

Brilliant.

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