Comments on: One Reason Not to Hate Twitter's New Retweet Function

By: How to (Properly) Retweet on Twitter. | Halfbrown

How to (Properly) Retweet on Twitter. | Halfbrown — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:27:54 +0000

[...] own retweet functionality in late 2009 to mixed reviews, and love it (or at least have a “glass half full” view of it) or hate it, it looks like it’s here to stay. To retweet using the [...]

By: Mike McCready

Mike McCready — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:41:05 +0000

To be honest, I’ve only use the Twitter.com version of RT a few times. I manage multiple Twitter accounts and use HootSuite. I find it interesting that 3rd party applications have had RT for quite some time, then comes along Twitter and introduces the ‘official’ RT tool and changes the way they want it. I will continue to RT using HootSuite.

By: Shannon Paul

Shannon Paul — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:21:27 +0000

The last part you mention will change — once you have the new feature, when you retweet someone the avatar of the person who originated the tweet will appear in the streams of your followers with your name underneath as the one who posted it to his/her stream.

By: Shannon Paul

Shannon Paul — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:20:11 +0000

I’m with you on the ability to edit retweets. I hope they make it so some kind of extra commentary or hashtag can be added. It should be interesting to see how this changes things.

By: Shannon Paul

Shannon Paul — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:19:07 +0000

I get what you’re saying, I really do… but there was no built-in discovery mechanism. People had to deliberately put an additional character in front of an @reply to promote discovery — it wasn’t something that happened organically on the platform anymore.

I don’t love the new feature either, but I’ll still be on Twitter because the technology is a secondary draw for me. The people on Twitter make it what it is, not a new button.

By: Shannon Paul

Shannon Paul — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:17:07 +0000

Do you have the new feature? If not, you’ll still see them the way you always did. Having the feature means you see Retweets differently on the web.

By: David Guion

David Guion — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:57:21 +0000

I am fairly new to Twitter, so I don’t know many details about this discussion. I only hope that if I retweet something that I think worth passing on, all of my followers will see it, and if someone following me retweets something of mine–especially when I update my blog–that their followers will see it. That’s how it seems to work now, and I’m opposed to anything that gets in the way and in favor of anything that keeps it working smoothly. I notice when I retweet, my own photo shows up, not that of the person I retweet.

By: TheMrs

TheMrs — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:11:30 +0000

I have already found new follows thru the new retweet. I think it definitely has its uses, and is a good idea as an ADDED feature.

I still love and want to be able to add a little extra to retweets the original way. I hope Twitter doesn’t decide the new way is simply ‘better’ and leave us without this option.

The word “new” makes me wonder if it is intended to eventually replace the old-school organic ‘RT’

By: mss @ZanthanGardens

mss @ZanthanGardens — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:20:33 +0000

Twitter’s earlier change to @ only restricted our ability to find new people if we were following people who were not clever enough to figure out they could put the @ elsewhere in the tweet if they wanted everyone to see it. It really cut down on the noise of @chatters, those people who use Twitter as an IM substitute. For the most part, you only saw their original tweets and not half a conversation. (@whoever. Oh! You too?) More signal, less noise.

The new retweet feature favors mindless automation. Most people I follow annotate their retweets. They provide added value to the tweet they are sharing. To me it seems like this new system is designed to encourage viral marketers at the expense of personal interactivity. More noise, less signal.

However, as long as we can still handcraft our retweets using RT, then I don’t hate the new feature. Especially as there seems to be the ability to block seeing these kinds of RTs from someone you follow without unfollowing their entire Twitter stream.

By: Rufus

Rufus — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:24:18 +0000

RT the twitter way “implies” it is something I agree with when some times, it is not the case. The retweet twitter-style is nothing more now to me than a “I totally agree…” type comment to a tweet. And that does not advances a conversation.

It would be nice to have an agree-disagree-sarcasm-indifferent click and/or short comment (sub-tweet?) one can attach to the RT.

But, that retweet link makes it really easy to RT something. Just click, no thinking needed.

The tracking back to the originator is a good thing maybe. But for me, a tweet is something I scribble on a post-it note and stick on the wall. Throw-away thoughts.