Over the last couple of months, Twitter has been taking major steps to become more user friendly. The first major step was adding Twitter Lists. They are an extremely helpful way to organize people you want to follow. This is especially useful if you’re following thousands of people.
Twitter is now doing Beta testing for the built in ReTweet button. Even though I use Hoot Suite (which has a build in ReTweet function) for 90% of my Tweeting needs, occasionally, I do some tweeting from Twitter as well.
The Retweet button appears right next to the reply button on the bottom right of each tweet. When You click it, a message asks if you want to retweet to your followers. Nothing special there.
The coolest part is how the ReTweets are displayed. Instead of marking ReTweets with RT, there is a nifty little ReTweet icon that is easy to identify. The coolest part is below the tweet where Twitter lists who else has ReTweeted the Tweet (too much Tweeting).
You can only see the names of people you are friends with, so in this picture, I can’t see who the other 11 people were who ReTweeted the post. I think being able to see how many people ReTweet a particular post will help blog articles to become viral more easily.
Another cool feature is being able to follow someone, but turn off their ReTweets. Say, for example, someone almost always ReTweets the same things you ReTweet, you can just turn off their ReTweets, but still follow their feed.
I really love this concept. I think it’s going to help spread great articles faster and cut down on spammers a little bit. I’m interested to see how this will change how ReTweet plugins like Tweetmeme work. I’m also curious how it will handle the same tweet multiple times (since it is not uncommon for people to tweet their posts 2 or 3 times throughout a day).
What are your thoughts on the new RT feature? Do you think the icon is helpful or would you rather keep the RT tag?
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Dave Doolin | Website In A Weekend Says:
November 19th, 2009 at 12:00 PM
Still not sold on it, but I’m watching how it the retweet deal plays out.
Blake Waddill Says:
November 19th, 2009 at 12:07 PM
I’m not totally sold on it either. I like the idea of being able to see who else retweeted, but that really the only feature I think is good. Having the retweet button function like it does in hootsuite would be sufficient for me.
Himanshu Says:
November 19th, 2009 at 10:19 PM
This feature is not for everyone yet! Yesterday I saw a message flashed on my screen when I opened Twitter website, I was surprised to see this feature. This feature is useful but we can’t edit RTs, if we push the Retweet button it automatically tweet the post (Tweetmeme plugin offers editing of Tweets). But anyhow, its a nice initiative from Twitter and some development is required.
Blake Waddill Reply:
November 19th, 2009 at 10:48 PM
Not being able to edit the retweet is a major negative point that I didn’t mention in my post. I have to agree that it is really annoying too.
It has potential, but it needs work for sure.
Gabe | freebloghelp.com Says:
November 20th, 2009 at 9:17 AM
I don’t like that folks can turn off ReTweets. When I used Sponsored Tweets, sometimes they have to ReTweet for me to lower my CPC.
Anyway, I’m torn on whether or not I like the Twitter evolution in general. On one hand, Twitter is trying to fix their biggest issues, like spam, bots, and noise but on the other hand, the great thing about Twitter to begin with was its simplicity.
Blake Waddill Reply:
January 21st, 2010 at 12:35 AM
Twitter is sort of going back against the simplicity it started with. The lists were a pretty logical step since it is really the only way to organize thousands of people you may be following.
It is nice being able to use lists rather than a third party site/program.
I also think it’s lame that you can turn off the retweet. Don’t follow someone if you don’t want to see everything they have to say.
DS R4 Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:19 AM
I think Twitter only will verify the accounts that are having a lot of imposters… you have to fill out some form and prove your stalkers and I think actual people review it and somehow they decide you are the real you and verify it.
DS R4 Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:20 AM
Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post.
yes we can carpet cleaning Says:
February 4th, 2010 at 8:35 AM
I think twitter should stay simple as it is, simple like how many people got hook on it