Yes, Twitter is in the process of rolling out its new Retweet functionality to a more users, the service confirmed today. Based on the number of tips we’ve received, and the number of TechCrunch staff members who now see the functionality, it would seem that today’s roll-out is pretty large.
So what’s the verdict? Some people love it, some people hate it. It is definitely a significant change to the way people are accustomed to using Twitter, so it will undoubtedly take some time for most users to get used to. Some may call this “Facebook Syndrome” (users always complain when Facebook changes something, even if it’s for the better), I call it “human nature” (people generally dislike change).
If you do happen to have it now, here’s a few interesting notes about the new feature (at least on twitter.com):
- First, there is a new Retweets area in the right side bar. This allows you to see “Retweets by others”, “Retweets by you”, and “Your tweets, retweeted”. While the UI for the main homepage retweets can be a bit confusing at times, this Retweet area is laid out pretty nicely, as it is easy to see who exactly retweeted what.
- Second, as co-founder Evan Williams noted today, there is an easy way to turn off retweets from individual users. Simply click on their profile and make sure the Retweet logo (the circular arrows) below their name is not highlighted green. This means that it’s off and you will not see Retweets from that user in your timeline. That’s great for users who go overboard with the feature and muck up your stream.
- Third, if you do hate the new Retweet way, just don’t use it. Nothing is stopping you from still using the “RT …” syntax. The new Retweets simply give you an easy way to highlight something to your followers with the click of a button.
I don’t have it yet, but have seen it. They really should NOT have named this “RT.” It is a copy of FriendFeed’s like feature.
If you look at it as NEW functionality it leads us in a new direction: this will greatly help with search when new search features roll out over next six months.
See, when you “RT” (new RT) you add metadata to the tweet that tells the search engine it’s important. This will let your friends (in the future) search for it. Using syntax like “show me all items about Adobe that have been RT’d by @arrington.”
But, it is NOT a replacement for “old style RT’s.” I can’t edit the original Tweet. I can’t add a comment onto it. If you compare it on that basis it will really suck. That’s why Twitter should never have named it “RT.”
I was actually just thinking that very same thing Robert. Guess we both like FF quite a bit, huh? I like how it brings tweets that my friends think are important back to the top, but it sucks that they can’t comment on why they think it is important like on FF.
I can’t see why the huge backlash right now.
You are right in that it is another option. A damn clever one at that too. But the word here is ‘option’. You can ‘choose’ to use it or stick to the old way of RT.
‘Like’ seems to be a better description. If they do that, they should also add a ‘Dislike’ to balance out the equation…
You’re from that crazy Facebook group, aren’t you?
Yes.. the fact that you cannot even review the RT’d tweet (what if it’s too long.. does it cut off?) freaked me out to first say yes, send this to my followers and then have it instantly post. It’s much more of a *like than an *RT which to me is a conversation, and not necessarily an endorsement.
I guess it’s good that it didn’t insert the RT in front of the tweet I was hitting the button for.. in that sense, it is a bit more clear that it’s *not* like the RT’s where I say “RT @username” in front.
They need to make this clear and distinguish.
It’s actually a replacement for the “Favorite” feature. They should have replaced Favorites with this new feature. I will try to use it to do what I’m doing with http://twitter....eizer/favorites (I read thousands of tweets a day and put the best ones I find on my favorites list).
I totally agree with you, Robert. Since Twitter Favorites has essentially been broken (i.e. little used) since the beginning, they could have just upgraded that.
Yes, you and some others have used Favorites of late through a variety of hacks like import into FriendFeed (with possibly pipe back to one’s Twitter timeline, where Fave’s should have gone in the first place), or through Favstar.fm.
But those are hacks and crutches for a feature that never fully caught on in the wider community. Why? Because if you take an action (such as faving) in social media and no one is notified, it’s as if it didn’t really happen. Favorites were missing the feedback loop from the beginning.
So, missed opportunity, as well as tone-deafness by Twitter head honchos who were already told by the community a few months back that the proposed new RT feature had issues…
+1 for the tone-deafness comment.
I would say it destroys the flexibilty that RT has without gaining anything in return (except now there’s the Retweet sidebar area – but this doesn’t really add much information – can’t be search the way Robert describes w/ FF [below])
All in all, HUGE disruption for LITTLE or NOTHING gained.
#FAIL
Sticking with Favorites – much more straightforward, even if rather limited compared to FF “Like”)
hey mg. i don’t know much about search, so forgive me if this is a silly question, but…
if the new rt feature adds metadata which tells a search engine that a highly retweeted msg is important, and the api allows for mechanisms that generate retweets based on keywords (it does) then how can i trust the integrity of search results?
FriendFeed shows how this could be used. Over there you can ignore likes, like this:
show me all items that have the word “adobe” in the title but are written by anyone. Like this: http://friendfe.../search?q=Adobe
But you can also say “show me only those items that have been liked by five people or more.” Like this: http://friendfe...e:adobe+likes:5
On FriendFeed you can also search for all items liked by a certain person, too, so I could say “show me only items liked by @arrington.”
This is EXTREMELY useful. Especially to find older items that are important (like during a big news event).
yes, as facebook says, “it’s complicated.” it will be very, very interesting to see how this feature plays out once everyone has it. expect backlash from multiple directions.
I’d have liked to see a combination of RT/like in the way that shared items on Google Reader work. You click to Like/RT/Share/whatever, and it presents the original tweet in the form that it was posted, along with a short area for you to give your comment on it.
Agreed. It’s voting mechanism, or “like” or whatever you want to call it, but it’s not what we’ve been using RT’s for (in most cases). It’s a new concept for Twitter users – and should have been rolled out as such. It’s going to split the crowd and make each method half-as-useful.
However, I’m sure we’ll adapt and a voting method is not a bad idea. Just the name.
Apart from not being able to edit a retweet, there are other gotchas as well.
For example, if people retweet one of your tweets and you then delete the original tweet, all retweets disappear as well.
This new retweet feature attaches every retweet as meta data to the original tweet. It’s not a separate tweet, as is the case with old-style RT.
If the original tweet disappears (or the author’s account is closed or suspended), all retweets of that tweet disappear with it.
I’ve had this feature for a couple of days, and can see why people would be perplexed by the comparison with old-style RTs.
This isn’t really like “like” or “favorite” because if I retweet something using the new interface, it generates a new tweet that shows up as such in my stream and third party clients. Only in the web interface it looks slightly different, with a retweet icon instead of “RT.”
If I retweet something that was itself a retweet of someone else, it only tweets the original. No credit is given the first-generation retweeter.
How I hope this works when rolled out to third party clients: the retweet button on Tweetie, Tweetdeck functions as a new-style “RT” — or maybe there’s a toggle to enable old-style RTs as opposed to the Twitter.com version. I can see this getting super-complicated real fast if it’s two buttons.
Using the RT button in third party apps is enough to create retweet metadata on that tweet.
As it is now, we are in danger of creating a ghettoized version of retweeting that will require Twitter clients to be significantly redesigned. I frankly don’t understand why my current RT’s, which I am free to edit for length or to add comments, shouldn’t count. Just like how Twitter reconstructs conversations based on sequential replies, Twitter should also be able to leverage existing syntax and still show us the pretty pictures of who retweeted, etc. etc.
I don’t have the feature yet. But I get the impression you still can do the old fashioned RT with edits and all. No? I mean, Twitter has to keep adding features if it is to grow. All it has to do is look around the Twitter ecosystem and incorporate the hottest features.
I am yet to see this feature in my twitter account :{
Do you like the new RT system or hate it? http://twtpoll.com/x98v5p
Hate. I want to have a conversation not just quote what someone said. Boo!
I do not hate it, but I am like you and I tend to add my own comments to a RT and make it into a conversation rather than just a repeat. I guess I can still copy and paste the info to RT.
Only other gripe: I use TweetDeck, and the new RT’s don’t show up (yet). Back to the web I go…
and this mashup shows you all RT’s in any timeline: http://bit.ly/3U0pJA
I agree with Scoble.
I think that Twitter should emulate Tweetie’s implementation of the retweet feature, which puts “RT” at the front and allows users to edit the text before they send it.
By the way, I like change
Maybe it’s just me but I’m not crazy about the “Retweet to your followers”. Reasons:
1. who else are you going to be retweeting
2. just adds another click to the process. I was using @troynt’s script and loved how its retweet worked!!!
I think the RT functionality will be very useful, especially for those of us that favour using Twitter on the web over Seesmic or Tweetdeck, etc. due to resource constraints. I love that we won’t have to cut and paste to RT, but as Robert notes in his comment, I don’t like that we won’t have the option to add comments.
Currently, if I RT without adding any value to a tweet, I just use RT. If I want to change something in the tweet or add some further thoughts, I use “via” at the end of the tweet.
Hopefully with enough user feedback, the Twitter folks will evolve the new RT feature into something that works for all of us.
I like the new retweet-function actually, but I can understand there’s a bit commotion around it. Yet, for me it’s like this:
Advantages:
- It saves space (140 character limit)
- It gives more credit to the original tweeter
- …by that, you will tend to follow the original tweeter more quickly or check out his profile
- The tweet remains the tweet, no copying of tweets in order of ID and duplicates
Disadvantages:
- You cannot edit the RT or add comments to it
- Some people might not like ‘intruders’ in their timeline, especially those with small following
Yet, if you trust your followers by which they tweet why not trust them by which they share from others?
It’s like the article says, whenever something changes (Facebook, Last.fm,…) there’s always critics…Everyone has it’s own opinion ofcourse but maybe it’ll go better over time when everyone is used to the new RT-handling. We’ll see what will happen.
Inevitably, with change comes backlash.
(Think Facebook).
i.e. http://twitter....atus/5600818691
I agree with everything Scoble said
Mostly, RT evolved as a product of how people use twitter. This new “RT” feature does not replace the function of RT as it evolved as part of twitter culture – The ability to add opinion, context, humor is omitted.
It seems that the new RT feature attempts to architect Twitter culture and structure the uses of its product. It feels like that I am being told if I decide to “quote” someone else, this I how you should do it.
I do see how the implementation of this new feature will always attribute content to its original source and benefit community from the standpoint of stats, tracking, search, etc. But this all should be able to be accomplished while still giving RT’ers the ability to add value through comments.
There must be business reasons driving this design. IMO this does not replace RT functionality and should not attempt to replace RT but should augment it with another similar but different alternative.
maybe I am out on a limb here, but this seems like a clear example of disconnection between Twitter and its customers
MG,
I have to add that Twitter did not try to change a feature that they previously implemented, they are trying to change the way their customer culture uses their product.
To me that fails.
Andrew
This would really interest me – that is, if I ever got any RTs.
Thanks for the bonus coverage there M.G. and I like your use of the threadsy orange arrow pointing technique
Wondering who this is? I’m now part of a beta group! I have this enabled on my account and although I’m not pro-retweet this works. I also agree with Robert that this isn’t an adaption of RT but instead an evolution in a new direction..
I completely agree with Scoble that this new feature should not be called “RT” — especially not if it’s going to ignore in the sidebar all the other RTs formatted by hand. Plus, not being able to edit the tweet is very destructive to conversation, hashtag context, and even some methods of analytics. Booo.
Slow your roll missy. RT is a quote. If you want to change what they are saying use (via) or even start something new like PF. Para-Fraze. PP does’t look as nice. =D
“RT” does not imply a verbatim quotation — it’s a means of attributing the original source (at least amongst high volume content sharers and RT-ers). Via is acceptable for that, too. Quotes generally include quotation marks or “says @username.”
Cannot edit a retweet? What gives? I’ll give it a try but… wasn’t expecting this.
facebook look alike
this look like digg style
Everybody complaining about the inability to edit a retweet is an idiot. There, I said it.
The problem isn’t that you can’t edit a retweet, it’s that REPEATING something and COMMENTING on something are two different activities. They NEVER should have been using the same “RT” syntax. It was bad semantic tagging. People who started editing things and using “RT” are the screw-ups here, not Twitter.
Creating a new damn abbreviation for commenting, already.
someone has already made an interesting project http://www.retweetgame.com. looking at the code, dare i say looks much like a opt-in twitter botnet using the retweet api?
It seems you can only retweet people you follow. If you find a tweet via Twitter Search that you want to share with others you cannnot use the new Retweet functionality.
Untrue.
Correction: The new Retweet functionality is not available directly from the search results. However, you can retweet from the tweeter’s profile page or from the tweet’s status page. From the search results you have to either click on the tweeter’s name/avatar or the time stamp and then you can retweet.
Not sure why they would add an extra step to Retweet when you can Favorite or Reply directly from a search result.
What software are you using that shows the tabs in the screenshot?
i think i love it!!
I received this feature today and I don’t like it for the reasons stated above, namely that I can’t edit the content.
There’s another piece: I notice that in Twitter Lists, I can click the reply link, but there is no link for retweeting. I wonder if this omission is on purpose.
The crap about this being like the favorite feature rehashed (in comments) is ridiculous.
Twitter is apparently what you make it; and some people made it out to be something it’s not. Scoble is one of those people.
Favorites are … consider them like bookmarks. You look at favorite sites in bookmark lists, much like you could favorite tweets; in this regard Favorites (and bookmarks) are not actively shared to the masses.
The RT’s feature is just what it is – Re-tweet of someone else’s tweet; as in a direct, un-chopped quote, just as it should be. In every sense of the term, the RT feature is exactly as it should be.
If people want to continue to add their self-important 2cents to tweets like “I AGREE! RT @somebl…” – That’s great, use a some copy/paste action for it, otherwise – embrace this feature as it has excellent application sense, it does what it says it is, and it’s a great feature coined by users that Twitter (a free service) has taken and integrated in their own way.
Though similar to FF its a great one to have here tooo.
This still hasn’t appeard on my profile by after reading @EV’s description of it earlier today I’m worried that he mentioned that if multiple friends retweet something you will only see once instance of it which may make it difficult to judge how important or viral something is.
either way they need to roll the functionality out to all. i mean don’t get me wrong i like tweetdeckand the other third party apps but none have pulled in my lists to-date, which i’m pretty sure is available via the API and i’m tired of creating new groups and lists everywhere i go. i don’t mind using twitter.com, i really don’t, but beef up the functionality and user interface because i can’t share/rt anything with my friends unless i manually enter it or use tweetdeck
Useful pic: http://twitpic.com/q1e45
I have the RT feature now, and I’m giving it a thumbs down. While at first blush it seemed pretty darn convenient, its existence has spurred endless RTs with so many “@”s that they’re impossible to read. Twitter seems to go through phases, or maybe evolutions, that change the way we’re communicating. Right now, with the excessive RTs, inside jokes, and pitches, there is little room for connecting with your tweeps. Oh, and can we get an application fix to ban the word “rockstar” on twitter.
I hate this as a Retweet feature.
If they called it “Parrot” (and left re-tweet alone) I’d probably like it.
I like the retweet it helps you pass on information. But I do like Ellis comment about naming it “Parrot” instead, haha