Do you ever wonder if other people on Twitter are getting more out of it than you? When you see people who only follow a small amount of people, do you wonder what makes these few people so great?  Or do you just wish you could find more people worth following?

It turns out there's a really easy way to take a good look at the people another user is following. By using TwtRoulette, you can view another person's full Twitter timeline exactly as they see it. Obviously, most people use Twitter lists and clients to cut down on the noise once they're following a certain amount of people. If you're keen to see just a specific list of theirs, you can always do that from their Twitter profile. But to see everything they see in Twitter, TwtRoulette is the tool for the job.

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Using TwtRoulette

When you first see TwtRoulette, you will notice there's a few selected users displayed whose Twitter timelines you might like to view. If you want a little more choice, at the bottom of the page there's a link to the full directory.

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It's also possible to search for someone specific, using the search field at the top.

Join The TwtRoulette Directory

If you think you're following a great bunch of people, feel free to add yourself to the TwtRoulette directory. It will authenticate using oAuth and future TwtRoulette users will be able to see your name in the list of potential TwtRouletters. It's not required, so you can choose whether it's for you or not.

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If it's not for you, get back to the browsing.

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Random Twitter Timeline

The fun bit is when you try the random user gamble. Up in the top-right, there's a "Random" link to pick a new TwtRouletter Twitter timeline to view. If you're already viewing a profile, you'll see a "Next" button too.

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Social Sharing

If you like a list you're viewing, you can share it to Twitter easily. Plus, if you want more information on a person there's a link to their profile and the Tweet's permalink from TwtRoulette. If you have added yourself to the directory by authenticating, you're logged in to the system. This means you'll also be able to reply, favourite and retweet from within TwtRoulette.

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Has TwtRoulette Got Any Serious Uses?

So, this Twitter toy could keep you entertained for hours browsing other people's Twitter timelines. But what else could it be good for? Well, I can think of a number of things.

For starters, you may want to look at the timeline of someone you admire either as a role model or a leader in your field. If you're going for a new job, maybe you could spend some time taking note of the sorts of people which the employer respects and admires. Or if you've noticed someone always retweeting interesting Tweets, maybe it would be worth following their timeline to see where their news comes from.

TwtRoulette could also be a great way to find new people to follow. As most people on Twitter well know, the bio and follower count doesn't really tell us much about a person. What if they're slightly famous, but never Tweet? What if they're new to Twitter, but quirky and interesting all day long? These are things you won't see unless you follow the person yourself, thoroughly check each profile or use a tool like TwtRoulette to find them serendipitously via someone else's timeline.

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Competition for TwtRoulette

A potential threat to TwtRoulette would most obviously be Twitter itself implementing a tool like this. But Twitter seem to be focusing on monetising and keeping things simple so I don't think that will be a problem for some time yet.

The next most obvious worry with TwtRoulette would be spam and offensive Twitter accounts. Since accounts added to their system are managed by oAuth, spam accounts will be deleted from their system as they are deleted from Twitter. But there doesn't seem to be an in-house reporting system for offensive accounts. Surely this will need to be addressed later by TwtRoulette, since Twitter doesn't delete these accounts automatically.

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If you've thought of another great use for TwtRoulette or found an excellent timeline to check out, let us know in the comments!

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