Are Twitter's Experiments Fundamentally Changing the Service?

Even with an IPO looming, Twitter is not done experimenting. Its latest field test, which arrived Thursday, is a new account called @eventparrot. It has over 27,000 followers and a Twitter verification, and sends followers direct messages about breaking news apparently curated by Twitter

Event Parrot is the second Twitter-operated account to utilize the Direct Messages inbox to push content out to users. The first account, @MagicRecs, sends users DMs with follow recommendations based on who their friends are adding. (The idea behind Magic Recs led to a full blown push notification feature released last month.) In both cases, Twitter is utilizing the DM inbox in a new way, sending messages that aren't generated by friends or colleagues, but by a machine. Read more...