Real Benefits of the new Retweet Function
by Sinéad
I seem to be in a minority group that sees the potential that the new twitter re-tweet function brings. For someone that has worked on a method of highlighting Irish tweets for the benefit of non-twitter users and anyone offline for a long period of time, it’s possible that I’m able to see the potential a little more clearly.
The biggest benefit of the new retweet function is how it adds a method of highlighting localised trends. If 20 of your twitter friends retweet the same message you won’t see it 20 times, but you’ll see 20 “likes” beneath it instead, giving weight to the content of the message. It also stops your stream being diluted by the same message over and over again, which can be frustrating. And at the end of the day, if you’ve not had much time to use twitter you’ve got the “retweets” section to conveniently show you the highlights you’ve missed from your own personal stream that day.
The retweet feature also takes into consideration attribution; the original composer of the tweet appears in your stream and this is a wonderful way of discovering new twitter users. In essence it’s a solution to the fix @replies issue twitter had, everyone was so angry that they wouldn’t have an organic method of discovering new users to follow, now you do.
The other great thing about retweets is that it adds an extra dimension to keeping track of the tweets YOU find most interesting. If like me you use the favorite feature in twitter for something else entirely than the ability to view “retweets by you” will help keep track of the tweets you found important enough to share.
Overall I’ve enjoyed watching the evolution of the service and will continue to do so. I find it most interesting how, just like with Facebook users, change is scary and new but after awhile everyone gets used to it and moves on to being mad about something else entirely.
Comments
I like your measured response and the accentuation of the positive. I agree on everything you say.
The only downside is that the quality of ReTweeted material seems to have gone down now that I get to see more of it. A reflection on the people my followers follow, I guess. :) (Stumbled)
Great points. I notice a lot of people not attempting to look for all sorts of pluses that you’ve pointed out.
I wouldn’t go as far you though in its role as a roundabout addressing of the fix-replies issues, though clearly it does add to discoverability and in a more organic way than lists.
It’s hard to argue with attribution but I’m thinking that by opting to go with avatar rather than an underneath credit text it conflicts somewhat with the element of trust that people place in links retweeted by some of those they follow more than others. In other words to spot links retweeted by those you value the most you now have to scan the mini-text underneath. Without hurting discoverability (that’s not a word is it/) I think usability could be improved. But I’ll keep watching, and might change my mind.
Thanks
Well put. I broadly agree. When I read @Ev’s post about the pros and cons of the redesign, I saw a lot of sense in what he wrote. It certainly boosts discoverability, as Eolai puts it.* One disadvantage is that because I use TweetDeck far more than Twitter’s own page, I don’t see these RTs—not yet anyway.
[* Not only is it a word, it dates back to the mid-19th century.]
The high level of resistance (and anger) to redesigns is predictable, usually disproportionate, and understandable. People invest a lot of time, energy and personality into a program like this, and many feel aggrieved when the scenery suddenly shifts, whether for good or ill or a mixture.
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