- It preserves the author's intent by preserving their tweet exactly as they wrote it. How many times have you had to truncate someone else's tweet to accommodate for their user name? The original tweeter picked their words carefully, and although it has become an accepted practice to remove select words to make room for retweeting superfluence, that's actually terrible citation practice. As a writer, I love the preservation of intent.
- It draws attention to new personalities. More times than I can count I've scanned a tweet and replied to the person who posted it, only then to realize they were retweeting someone else. Putting someone else's user picture, username, and full tweet in my stream forces me to pause and consider it, which is the (presumed) intent of the retweeter.
- It does not violate your personal space, so shut up. I've heard that some people find this new feature intrusive or otherwise violating of their personal Twitter space. This is total bullshit. Retweeting has been around since Twitter has been around and it was not considered a violation. Retweets have always been content in your stream put there by people you choose to follow. This has not changed in any way: the content is tagged as "retweeted by so-and-so." Honestly. It's the same thing.
- You add nothing of value to a retweet. Another major complaint about this change is that retweets are no longer able to be annotated. But here's the thing: do you really add value when you add "love this" "check this out" or "smart" to a retweet? You do not need to add an extra text to endorse a retweet. You are retweeting it; that is an endorsement. And if you really need to add your own commentary within the tweet (have we forgotten there are venues for commentary outside of Twitter? Maybe you could blog it!), they did not somehow deactivate the old way of doing it. People will still know what you mean if you type "is this you in this video lol RT @username blah blah blah."
Friday, November 20, 2009
In Defense of the New Retweet Feature
Another something has changed on the Internet, so wouldn't you know it, everyone is upset. But the latest major Death of the Internet--the retweet reconfiguration--is a positive change. It is a positive change for more than one reason:
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ReplyDeleteAnother huge benefit is that if you already follow the person being retweeted, it doesn't show up again in your stream again. So I don't have to see the same thing 10 times!
ReplyDeleteThe only reason I'd disagree is that some users respond to questions by RTing, so we do sometimes miss the actual response. Sometimes, all we get is a random person in the timeline asking someone slightly more familiar a question.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, all a moot point if you're using an external client, like Seesmic.
I'm just dropping in to let you know that this weblog is being featured on Five Star Friday - http://www.fivestarfriday.com/2009/11/five-star-fridays-edition-80.html
ReplyDeleteI agree with @Turner. I'd say about 50% of the time people add value to a RT. If nothing else I can give people an idea of why I was retweeting, like "this pisses me off" or "I was wondering the same thing".
ReplyDelete@Turner @The Rhythm of One But if you want to add commentary and/or context, the old way of retweeting still exists. The new feature is another option, not a replacement.
ReplyDelete@Emily very good point. I wonder if the app I use will include both as shortcuts
ReplyDeleteI think the "invasion of space" thing is pretty funny. It's actually less of an invasion because I can tell what it is right away due to the icon.
ReplyDeleteAlso funny, people that bitch about every new feature Twitter implements. Seriously, got anything better to do? It's not like you're paying for it.
The fact that you can turn them off on a user by user basis is nice as well.