I just went on my Twitter account, and saw in the “people you might want to follow” box, the name of a well-known comedian who was being followed by one of the members of this very forum.

Now, I have had no contact with said member, and I am wondering how on earth my Twitter feed connected me with an STW member I have never had any sort of contact with, nor with whom I share any other mutual Twitter feeds.

On a similar note, a suggestion on my LinkedIn was that I might know someone who posted one of the most hilarious-yet-confounding threads this forum has known, in spite of the fact that the only knowledge I have of him is that he kicked off that thread a few years back.

So tell me: how did two different sites make these connections?

Voodoo, innit.

Email addresses automatically saved in your email account linked to LinkedIn and twitter, probably if you had dealings through classifieds or something

Data harvesting from your Internet browser. Far more knowledgable people will be able to give you a better explanation but I’ve seen some of those sites do all sorts. Especially LinkedIn. I’ve noticed it recommends that I should be friends with people I have only been in touch with by email (clients etc..) and have absolutely no connection with.

@iain1775

But that’s just it. I have never had any dealings with these people other than also using this forum.

And to actually suggest that I might want to follow a comedian on Twitter on the off-chance that I would recognise a screen name used by someone on an entirely unrelated forum, well… I’m bound to agree with CountZero.

Do you both say you like bikes in your profiles?

It will be at that fundamental level where Twitter and linkedin find a similar key word in your profiles and assume since you both like bikes you’ll both like Frankie Boyle and each other.

i had a bunch of folk appear on my linkedin whos only link to me was the fact that i had been on the same oil rig as them. never emailed them and never put the fact i was on that rig online ….. scary