Twitter has been gradually rolling out a number of changes in what appears to be their attempt to make third party web applications obsolete. This post will discuss the new “retweet” function on Twitter.com, the original website for Twitter. There has been much discussion about how this would look once applied. Most of the chatter I have heard has not been in favour of changing how people currently retweet. This is, I think, understandable given the fact that retweets grew organically from Twitter users and we are protective of the creative way we mould media to suit our needs. Briefly, for those who may not be familiar, a retweet is the reposting of a tweet that an individual feels is worthy of sharing with their followers. The traditional means of tweeting this are as follows,
RT: @personquoted Space aliens invade Punxsutawney, PA and kidnap Phil.
You spread the news but the original person gets credit for saying it first. Twitter can be a wonderfully democratic.
In the header photograph the conventional retweet formula is in violet. Notice there are two “RT”s which means this is the second time this is being repeated. This means the original message has most likely been shortened to accommodate two user names as well as the original message. The orange shows a retweet done by a third party application. Rather than starting with “RT” it ends in “via” and then posts the user name. This method can be confusing to some who mistake it for an original statement. The new retweet feature is pointed out in yellow. There is a symbol at the front of the tweet representing “retweet.” The avatar and user name is of the original person who posted the tweet. The retweet appears unaltered with the person who retweeted it, in your stream, listed at the end. It may have been retweeted several times but you will not see this in the home screen.
To examine retweets click on “Retweets” in the right hand column. This brings up a three tabbed screen with “Retweets by others,” Retweets by you” and “Your tweets, retweeted.”
The first tab shows everything that has been retweeted by anyone you follow. The avatar and name is of the person who originally posted the tweet but one can see who retweeted it to your stream by referencing the name after the tweet. Also shown are other people who have retweeted the same tweet. This is good because you can still be exposed to people outside your stream and get an idea of who may produce content that you are interested in. People may argue the original method of seeing their name in the retweet did the same thing but this is a sacrifice for being able to read the original message in it entirety. The other two tabs are self explanatory. They show posts you have retweeted to those who follow you and posts where others have retweeted your original content. With these tabs you can examine where a retweet was before you saw it and you can track where your own original content is spread.
Through the good graces of Amy Palmer (@BoSoxAmy), Douglas Breault (@GenKreton) and Jeff Reneker (@jreneker) I was able to experiment with the retweet function and use their eyes to get an idea of what they saw in their stream. We discovered that retweets of mutual followers do not show up in an individual’s main stream. This makes sense from an efficiency standpoint since it leads to a less cluttered stream but there are times a person only catches a general post upon seeing a retweet from a mutual friend. I can see where some people won’t like this. If a person retweets another who their followers don’t follow this will appear in their stream. If someone you follow often retweets another person you don’t follow and these updates are posts you would rather not see (which is why you aren’t following them in the first place) the only way I am aware of to prevent being barraged with these retweets is to block the person you do not follow from appearing in your stream. This could become a somewhat hostile move but I can’t think of another way around it. I am very sensitive about whom I block because, while they may not be my cup of tea, they have a right to be heard and with all the spammers about, someone who is blocked too often could be seen as suspect. I hope Twitter will find another work around to this problem so that people do not have to block others just to avoid seeing them retweeted in their stream. If you go to the profile of someone you follow you can manually turn off all their retweets. If the only person they ever retweet is @Hitler this is a practical solution but chances are that is not all they retweet so turning this off means losing that potential value added content.
Another notable is, the retweet function does not work for protected accounts. The only way to retweet a post from a protected friend is to manually cut and paste or hand type it. Also, the retweet button does not allow a person to add to or change the original content of a tweet. This helps preserves the author’s original words and intent. It is arguably the best and primary reason for having a retweet button. No longer will words be cut out and spelling changed to accommodate a person’s user name. All that said, I am certain there will be a lot of backlash on this because people really LOVE to add their own two cents to retweets. The only thing I don’t like about the direct quote is not being able to delete “please retweet” or “pls RT” from the end of a retweeted post. A post should be retweeted because it has value to an audience, not because someone asks. I don’t add this to posts because I have faith in the intelligence of my followers. They know their audience and will retweet what I write if it has value to them and the people who follow them. If it doesn’t they won’t. That is the way it should be.
Finally, a person won’t see themselves retweeted in their stream. Gone are the ego gratifying days where you post something and see it catch fire across Twitter. Now you have to go to the “Your tweets, retweeted” screen to see this. I think this is a good thing. There are other metrics to determine your impact on Twitter. Why not use them and spend your time on Twitter connecting with your audience and hearing what they have to say? A cleaner stream will allow you to do just that. Plus, with any luck, you’ll learn something.
