Twitter is rolling out a couple new features this week that expands its ability to show and help you develop your social network. The new features — “Followed by” and “You both follow” — are on their way to 100% availability, a Twitter spokesperson tells us.

Both features show up when looking at another user’s profile page. They help you learn more about the user than what’s written in his/her Twitter bio. (As my mom used to say, “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.” Thanks, mom.) They came in handy for me this weekend when I was suddenly followed by Liz Strauss. Now, Liz’s name is very familiar to me, but we’ve never had reason or chance to connect before. With the new features showing me that we have several common people/accounts in our social networks, it was an easy decision to follow her back.

Other social sites (like Facebook, for example) also show connections between users, so this isn’t unique to Twitter. But it does tighten Twitter’s ability to show users important, shared connections and adds another tool for users to find new people to follow.

A third feature that some users recently spotted also added a indication of what Twitter lists a user has been added to, with that data seeming to come from a third-party, Tlists.com. Twitter tells us that this feature “is not ready for primetime and we don’t have a schedule for its launch (if it even happens).”

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Twitter

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