If you’ve read this blog, you know that ReTweets are one of my favorite topics. For a ton of reasons I think that they’re not only one of the most important developments to come from Twitter, but from social media in general.
How ReTweets Work Now
As you probably know, ReTweets were designed by the community, for the community, and currently look like this:
RT: @username Really Awesome Tweet
Granted, the “RT @username” prefix takes up some space, but that minor annoyance is more than made up for by the benefit users get from a Tweet clearly labeled as being ReTweeted from @username originally. When you see a ReTweet in your timeline it has the avatar of the person who did the ReTweeting, so you know who spread it to you and from whom they got it.
ReTweeters could add their own commentary (and lend social proof with their name and avatar), Twitter client developers could add one-click ReTweet functions and analysts (like me and Microsoft) could gather ReTweets and study them.
How Twitter Aims to Break ReTweets
In a stunningly disappointing move, Twitter has threatened to completely eviscerate most of the value out of ReTweets by “formalizing” a feeble version of a format that was already well understood and functional for all users involved.
Twitter plans to add a button to the Twitter web client that says “Retweet” that will allow you to send the same exact Tweet, with no editing, to your followers. Your followers will see the original poster’s avatar and name, even if they’re not following them, and the only indication they’ll see that it is a ReTweet will be a small line of light gray text underneath it.
I follow people because I trust and enjoy their point of view, I don’t nessecarily trust the POV of people I don’t follow, so using the original poster’s picture and name in my timeline destroys any social proof the ReTweeter may have lent the Tweet.
Most active Twitter users use third party desktop and mobile clients to Tweet, and there is no way of telling how those developers will indicate ReTweets in this new format just yet. The Tweets will not contain the “RT @username” prefix. There will no longer be a commonly understood format. Scanning my friend’s timeline is how I use Twitter, and I suspect how many of you do too. The new ReTweet format will make that much harder.
If more than one of my followers ReTweet the same Tweet, the screenshots seem to indicate that the ReTweet won’t appear more than once in my timline, it will simply be updated to say “ReTweeted by @user1 and @user2…” The problem here is that if @user1 ReTweets at 1pm and @user2 does it at 2pm, that Tweet will have been buried in my timeline and I won’t see it again.
The new version of ReTweets will come with a few new API calls. They’re calling your friend’s timeline by a new name so they can deprecate the old one (which worked fine). They’re going to allow you to see ReTweets you’ve posted (not sure why), and ReTweets your followers have posted (which you could already do). The only kind of cool API call is the one that will allow you to see the 20 most recent updates that are ReTweets of your Tweets; problem is, you can only get yours. You can’t see the most recent ReTweets of other people’s content, and you can’t check for ReTweets of a specific Tweet.
If I didn’t know better, this would make me think the team who designed this didn’t really understand how ReTweeting works. (Update: it turns out the project lead, @Zhanna, has only retweeted and using a non-standard version of the less popular “via” syntax) The new format will make them harder to use, more confusing, less valuable and kill the ReTweet.
How ReTweets Should be Adopted
The idea of a button, next to the reply button, is great; that absolutely should be implemented. But clicking that button should do the same thing that TweetDeck does: copy the Tweet into the text area, add “RT @username” and let me edit before sending.
An API call should be added so that 3rd party clients could signal to Twitter that a Tweet is a ReTweet of a specific update. The new API calls are otherwise fine, but there should also be a call to get all ReTweets of a specific Tweet.
My advice? Use the HashTag: #SaveReTweets to start making some noise about this, and keep using the old “RT @username” format.
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August 14th, 2009 at 1:47 am
Thanks for sharing, I totally agree. Without the RT @username, ability to add comments and notification of who RT’s, RT will become more confusing and will loose it’s power as a social mediator.
Shame on you Twitter if this gets implemented!
August 14th, 2009 at 3:57 am
Totally agree 100% with all the points you raise.
Definitely a case of the left hand not knowing where the right hand is, let alone what the right hand is doing.
Removing the _obvious_ ‘traceability’ of RT’s doesn’t make one bit of sense, unless I’m missing something.
I can’t even begin to understand the rationale behind their thinking.
It would be good if they could explain their reasoning and what they intended the proposed changes to achieve. That should make an interesting read.
August 14th, 2009 at 4:22 am
This does seem like its not been thought out properly, but that happens a lot when people who manage the software dont really use it to the same extent that the customers do.
August 14th, 2009 at 4:52 am
Theoretically, third party developers could implement them so that they still appear as “RT @username $originaltweet”, with the retweeter’s profile picture and name – couldn’t they?
August 14th, 2009 at 6:20 am
Completely agree! As an active ReTweeter, I enjoy slipping in my haiku-compressed take on someone’s Tweet into the ReTweet. Your slide 12 in your Science of Tweets slideshow shows ReTweets tends to be “smarter”, by a readability index and one presumes that often goes with some value-added semantic content. It seems Twitter.com ReTweet plans will encourage parroting.
That said i can’t help but think that there’s some marketing theory on this new ReTweet “upgrade” that relates to Twitter’s desire to surface important tweets by having a ranking system on the authority of tweets (said by Biz Stone at Fortune Brainstorm (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/23/biz-stone-talks-twitter-at-fortune-brainstorm/). An obvious choice of system is greasing the skids for crowdsourced counts of ReTweets — now facilitated by their new ReTweet button.
August 14th, 2009 at 7:23 am
I’m not sure you’ve really got this one. While I agree it would make sense to make the retweeters identity more visible, it seems like you are rebelling against change because it’s different. Yes the community made this up and it was working, but I think this is a very agile community, one who is willing to make some changes if they are helpful. Why not assume the API will be updated accordingly and that client developers, being the VERY agile lot they are, will be able to make the appropriate (and seemingly fairly simple changes) to their client?
Although I can see a potential problem: imagine someone creating something that was very retweetable on purpose and really putting it out there, then changing their avatar to something less than desirable as a prank, and all these people who don’t follow this person but who got one of their retweets would then get it.
August 14th, 2009 at 7:41 am
I don’t see the point of fixing something that ain’t broken.
It doesn’t makes sense to change the RT function. Now the viral effect will suffer because of it.
Igor
August 14th, 2009 at 7:59 am
I really like the possibility of blocking a single individual’s retweets. Some people are more valuable for their original posts and are too promiscuous with their retweeting; the ability to cut through and just see their posts would be a boon for my own timeline.
August 14th, 2009 at 8:22 am
So … can we all ask that this not be done? Please? Sometimes leaving things alone is the best – and this is one of those times
August 14th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Dan;
Thanks for writing this. My hope is that folks can simply retweet however the heck they want. Maybe some of us will keep doing it the old way. Its the new folks I’d be concerned about.
Mike
August 14th, 2009 at 8:32 am
I’m really glad you took the time to pound out this article complaining about a UI change. Change… Mamma Mia! No one saw it coming!
No longer a commonly understood format? You’re totally right. RT isn’t a crypic term at all and RT being expanded to Retweeted really confuses the hell out of me. How am I supposed to know what Retweeted means now? It could be anything!
Really great article, top notch complaining.
August 14th, 2009 at 8:42 am
I can not begin to tell you how reading your posts for only 2 days has opened my eyes to marketing with Twitter. You really love RTs, dude! I’m not sure exactly how you personally analyze them, but I’ll be doing my own experiment Monday through Wednesday to see if I can increase my subscriber base with a Top 10 post that I really worked hard on. Shall I share the results?
August 14th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Does twitter really have enough problems on their hands they have to “solve” problems that don’t exist?
…maybe they hired a Product Manager who needs to prove themselves, or someone with an MBA?
Twitter is huge today because you listened to their community and did what the community wanted. ReTweets, Hashtags, twitpic, twhirl, crazy-URL-shortening magic tricks… all came from US, not you (twitter).
We stayed with you through months of horrendous FAILWHALE sightings. We wrote songs about you. And cartoons. We made artwork and tee-shirts. We told our friends about you. We rt @twittere’d all day and all night long–in our minds if we had to (when your kitteh was in teh servers again).
Twitter, we loved you.
And now you kick us @the_curb because you think you know how to solve our problems? We didn’t even ask you to solve them.
EPIC TWITTER FAIL
August 14th, 2009 at 9:36 am
TweetGrid processes RT similarly to TweetDeck. I’m sure other 3rd party utilities are following suit. Maybe Twitter is really trying to break the utilities and force us back to Twitter itself, which is now almost the least useful way to tweet.
August 14th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Hopefully all the power users are on Tweetdeck or other 3rd party apps and the current RT process will continue. Otherwise this is a very bad idea. Who reads that tiny little gray line?
-RG
August 14th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Dan – I completely agree.
This means that anyone using RSS search feeds including the “RT” to separate out the RT’d content will ultimately have to change their research methodology.
Here is an outline of mine… (multi-step process that combines RTs and PostRank using yahoo pipes and google reader inside firefox).
http://www.cpsrenewal.ca/2009/…..ch-on.html
I am not a happy camper if this goes through.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Actly petition for #SaveRetweets
http://act.ly/er
(started by @jgilliam)
August 14th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
3rd comment in a row… initial link to my methodology is a broken link, if interested try this:
http://www.cpsrenewal.ca/2009/07/signal-to-noise-how-i-do-research-on.html
August 14th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
We will still be able to RT the same way, adding our own commentary, without using the new method. The choice of using the built in ReTweet will help clean up unedited ReTweets. The question is: How will apps handle it? Will we have to type in our own commented RT (I do anyway) instead of using a button?
We will have more choices: use the new method, a pure ReTweet, or a commented RT that will show up as a mention.
August 14th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Damm ! I do not like this new format of things i was reading about it on twitters blog last night and i agree retweet should be an internal part of twitter but they should keep the “RT@username blahh ” i like that damm format. To improve what they should do is eliminate “RT@username” from the character count so that you still have a 140 after the actual adding of the username ?anyone agree ? other than that the retweet system is fine.
August 15th, 2009 at 2:30 am
thx for the piece. i am not at all in favour of this move, for many of the reasons listed above. i would add that i have enough problems (still) with people showing up in my timeline who are not ‘authorised’ to be in it; the last thing i want is to try and determine why other folks i am not following are suddenly appearing; additionally, it just sounds like another easy point of entry for other unauthorised tweets in the timeline (not just the RTs). i have spent enough time over the past several weeks alone in the debugging of twitter.
also–some very active twitterers do use classic twitter and tweet via assorted mobile phones. keep it lean.
think twitter needs to spend more time on fixing what is already known to be break points rather than inventing new ones while they find themselves.
//karen
August 15th, 2009 at 3:25 am
Perhaps Twitter has some other, longer term outcome in mind? A lucrative alliance with … well, who knows?
Anyway DanZ., an excellent article and fantastic resource you’re providing.
Go well
August 15th, 2009 at 3:50 am
I also agree. One of my accounts is geared to business owners & we retweet all biz info we find since we all follow different people.
I agree with Igor… “if it ain’t broke… don’t fix it”
August 15th, 2009 at 5:16 am
The hashtah #SaveReTweets could be too long for many cases.
How about #SRT ?
@fcseh – on Twitter
August 17th, 2009 at 4:25 am
The consensus seems to be that as this isnt a mess, why should people change it? Change for changes sake isnt often worth it.
August 18th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Seriously? Is Twitter even thinking this through? This is one of the dumbest things they have done.
August 18th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I wonder if they intend to mess up the “Via @xxx” format as well. It’s my preferred way of RT’ing. [@alkalar on Twitter].
August 18th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Here’s an idea: If you hate the Twitter’s new embedded ReTweet function, just RT the old way. NO ONE IS STOPPING YOU!
August 19th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Leave it to the folks at Twitter to mess up a good thing. If it ain’t broke…
August 20th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
testing disqus
August 21st, 2009 at 1:39 am
Thank you for sharing..
August 21st, 2009 at 1:45 am
Thanks for sharing…
August 21st, 2009 at 4:41 am
Concur — “If it ain't broke, don't fix it”. – Simply add the convenience button and leave well enough alone. #SaveRetweets
August 26th, 2009 at 6:13 am
Let me add a dissenting voice:
I despise the RT format and think Twitter's solution is the correct one. The RT format is a needless amount of noise that sucks up a significant portion of the valuable 140 characters that Twitter allows. Further, it remains a solution in search of a problem. “ReTweeting” is called linking. Links work on Twitter. Adding your context around a link is the “right” way to show someone that you ascribe value to the content at the end of the link.
Twitter's solution is the best option in my mind because it will likely allow the option on Twitter, via the API, or via Application Developers, to not show me ReTweets.
ReTweets have added so much needless noise to the Twitter stream. Twitter is finally doing the right thing.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:39 am
Can you updte the post where it says Zhanna has never retweeted anything to reflect that she has using via?
August 26th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Sorry, but most people don't understand the “RT” thing. I spend more time explaining it, than I do doing it.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:31 am
This is the right move for Twitter. A retweet is metadata about a tweet…basically an up-vote for a tweet. Replicating the tweet as an RT presents two issues: 1) it doesn't capture this data, which is valuable, and b) the RT loses integrity because the retweeter can modify the content.
That being said, I think you're saying that Twitter's implementation misses the ability to add a bit of commentary to a retweet in the same way that “RT” does. I would agree, but I think the solution is different. Twitter should allow a retweet with an additional tweet and those should be displayed. This is effectively what FriendFeed does.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:48 am
People who don't understand it are using hte twitter.com interface instead of a third party app that does the RT for you. I just had this conversation with someone the other day.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:47 am
Agree!!! Enough said.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:53 am
This is not a good move by Twitter – so not cool!
August 27th, 2009 at 2:16 am
It will be impossible to tell when the last time a tweet with a link, such as to your blog, went out. How will we know so we can keep from repeating a tweet and therefore falling out of search? I guess this also makes my “How to Become Instantly RT-able” a dinosaur =(
Thank you for the info!
x0x
Anita @ModelSupplies
August 27th, 2009 at 2:22 am
What about #SaveRTs?
August 27th, 2009 at 2:27 am
That's exactly what I was thinking! Twitter should be working on their infrastructure/ backbone for less #Fail sightings. RTs were never a problem. They are a challenge for your very bright audience.
August 27th, 2009 at 8:44 am
I agree, I like the use of ReTweets RT @useername and do not want to see it changed!
August 27th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Hi Dan, had a quick read at ur post, I agree with you that if the proposed move as mentioned by u is underway then it will affect the traceability in RT
August 27th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
How about 2 forms: 1) RT = pure retweet, unedited 2) RTC = retweet with comment (or edit 4 length). Then put the “retweeted by” line below 2 save space.
August 27th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Couldn't it adequately be solved by not counting “RT @username” in the character limit?
August 27th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
The problem I think that they're trying to solve is the the rash of spam RT like “RT @Alyssa_Milano view Inglourious Basterds for free online here:…”. I agree that you lose value of the tweet if the person retweeting can't provide comment, but you lose more when you can't verify that the original message was real and not a spam bot (or some random hoaxer) making stuff up. The way it is now, anyone can go in and do something like “OMG! RT @NYTimes Jeff Goldblum dies in from cliff in NZ” and by the time someone remembers that email hoax it will have been retweeted a hundred times or more with no validation that @NYTimes actually tweeted it.
So…if this solution doesn't work for you, what can the community do to solve the problem of RT spam and false RT's? Perhaps instead of the “retweeted by” have an embedded tweet from the retweeter? Maybe reverse it and have the main tweet by the person retweeting and the retweet shadowed below with a link to the original? These things will mess up the view on the timeline, but they address the problem without “breaking” it the way you describe.
August 27th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
I think it's another form of friendfeed 'like'. If they do it properly, it will be success. But, actually, I prefer old format of 'RT @'.
August 27th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Comparable to the Great Woods Performing Arts Center now known as Comcast Center, I call it Great Woods. RTs will live on.
August 28th, 2009 at 12:17 am
I have for a long time now said publicly that Twitter needs to concentrate on making the platform more stable.
All this messing around and prettying up the site is taking away from it's functionality. After all if it works we will use it. They took away the ability to see all @replies, if they take the ability to RT away will that be a step to far for some?
August 28th, 2009 at 4:25 am
This is the same reason that American car companies fail at improving their best-selling models.
American car company: What is the feature that people really like about this model? OK, well let's “improve” on that feature. (Until it no longer contains whatever it is they like about it.)
Japanese car company: What is the feature that people really like about this model? OK, let's leave that part alone, because people obviously like it and find something else to improve upon.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
I don't think I will lie awake over this. Nevertheless, if it's true, then it would seem that Twitter doesn't understand a thing about Twitter…
Actually, I seldom RT without editing. I often add a comment of my own. I plan to keep on doing this, no matter what Twitter prescribes
A RT from someone I don't know, without the clearly visible credentials of a person I do follow, is meaningless.
September 4th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Twitter should be spending its time on fixing things that are broken, like the amount of spam they spend their resources responding to rather than being proactive. It's a simple code fix to allow “one click” RTs in the form we know, use and love (I often comment on when I RT), as opposed to the more difficult task of changing the fabric of the site to do RTs the way they are proposing.
I'm not going to stop RTing the way I currently do. I hardly ever use the site anyway, Tweetdeck is much more efficient for me. With 22k followers, there's no way I can see even a fraction of my followers' tweets. I have a group of around 150 people I've built up a trust for and I listen to them. They often RT things that twitterers I don't know have said, which I won't see under the proposed system.
Twitter – keep the format the same. It works a lot better than what you propose will. Add a button to improve user experience, but don't mangle something that makes your site unique.
September 4th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Good analogy! If only more companies followed the Japanese car company model
September 4th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
What are you saying? You DON'T like the fail whale? lol
September 4th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Solution – Twitter should focus more on targeting the problem (spam) rather than an outlet for the problem (RTs). Spammers will always find a way to spam. Making a concerted effort to combat spam is one of the main reasons Facebook has Myspace in a stranglehold, particularly among the non-teen demographic.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:46 pm
The fact that Twitter didn't have a formal way to retweet has always been lame. But I agree with Dan that to completely change the format now that the community has developed it's own standard in an open source way is even more lame.
I haven't heard anything to the contrary, but what is to stop us from doing it the way we've been doing it; either via another app or copy and pasting the tweet and adding “RT @username” and comments?
Eventually the brass may get the idea.
September 28th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Can't you just continue using the old format if you want?
October 19th, 2009 at 9:45 am
This artilce was posted 2 months ago, and by now I hope Twitter has changed their minds about doing this. If you have an update, please let me know.
Thanks.
@ileane
November 10th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I just totally agree. TOTALLY.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I just totally agree. TOTALLY.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I just totally agree. TOTALLY.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
[...] upcoming change has sparked a heated debate. Some, like Mashable guest writer Dan Zarrella, are heavily against it, while Twitter’s leadership and others believe it will improve the user [...]
November 12th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
[...] Twitter Plans to Mangle ReTweets #SaveReTweets, by Dan Zarrella @danzarrella [...]
November 14th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
[...] [...]
December 4th, 2009 at 2:34 am
[...] Twitter Plans to Mangle ReTweets #SaveReTweets (Dan Zarrella) [...]
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:41 am
I have for a long time now said publicly that Twitter needs to concentrate on making the platform more stable.
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December 22nd, 2009 at 9:41 am
I have for a long time now said publicly that Twitter needs to concentrate on making the platform more stable.
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January 9th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
[...] The original rant from Dan Zarella [...]
January 9th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
[...] Twitter Plans to Mangle ReTweets #SaveReTweets (Dan Zarrella) [...]
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