Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Has @Twitter Declared War on Traditional Retweets? #TR

Update 5/20/10 5:06 pm. I just tested it and Twitter has gone right back to what it was doing before.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: On 5/20/10 I discovered that Twitter heard our voices, and removed the "RT" filter from searches. So we are back to normal.

*********
(Thanks to my friends @lissnup and @dominiquerdr for bringing this issue to my attention:)

We have previously discussed the problem with Twitter's "retweet" button, which has almost none of the properties of the traditional retweet ("Twitter tip: don't use Twitter's pseudo "retweet" button"), and discussed why it is preferable to use the traditional retweet (i.e. those usually signified by beginning them with "RT @Username").

It now appears that Twitter has silently begun a war against traditional retweets, with the first step being to filter them out of search.*

ANY TWEET WHICH HAS AN "RT" ANYWHERE IN THE BODY OF THE TWEET WILL BE FILTERED OUT OF

(a) SEARCHES INITIATED THROUGH THE SEARCH BOX ON THE HOME PAGE, AND
(b) SEARCHES INITIATED BY CLICKING ON A HASHTAG

I find this pathetic, and outrageous.

Twitter going to war with its own users.

And doing it in a sneaky, silent, back-door way.

If you use "R" instead of "RT" it will show up okay. So do that, or use some way other than starting your tweet with "RT", to signify your traditional retweet, such as "TR" for "traditional retweet", or "V" for "via". But whatever you do, don't use the term "RT", and edit the "RT"'s which may appear in the body of the tweet. (If you're tweeting about Iran, you should use "V" because the term "TR" is widely in use already, to denote "translated" tweets).

I'm going to use "TR".... to signify that I'm doing a traditional retweet despite their attempt to stamp it out.

And don't forget: if you're retweeting something that already has an "RT" anywhere in its body, you're going to have to edit the "RT"'s, changing them to "R" or "V" or "TR" or anything other than RT.

What a lame organization Twitter is.

*At the moment they appear to be filtered out of (a) homepage search box searches and (b) hashtag searches, but not out of searches through http://search.twitter.com. I ran a test of the same search, at the same time, by the home page method and the search.twitter.com method: Here's how they came out.

Update 5/18/10 10:19 PM. @Charles of Twitter was asked this question by @Twitter_Tips:
Quick question about changes to Twitter search. Are they intentional, temporary or...? Example: http://j.mp/ceDRbe
and gave this answer:
The results in integrated search simply include 'exclude:retweets' automatically. Search.twitter does not do this.
Most significantly Charles was not asked "when was this implemented?" or "why was this implemented?".
I have asked Charles those questions. I can't wait until I get his response. I doubt very much I will get a response.

Update 5/19 1:01 PM. If you're opposed to what Twitter has done and would like to sign a petition against it: http://twitition.com/2sri3

Update 5/19 3:21 PM. I received these responses so far from Charles:

RTs are usually a lot of noise in search results. Excluding them makes the results cleaner and (in most cases) better. http://twitter.com/Charles/status/14310576955
We are constantly improving our algorithms and search quality. We will definitely take your concerns to heart for the future.http://twitter.com/Charles/status/14310649295


I've given him my list of five questions:

Dear @Charles I have 5 questions about Twitter's filtering out traditional retweets from search #TR http://bit.ly/b4QNke http://twitter.com/RayBeckerman/status/14311463285
1. When was this implemented?
2. Why was it implemented?
3. Why were the customers not consulted?
4. Is this the end, or just the beginning, of trying to distinguish traditional retweets from tweets?
5. Why was it not announced?


I'll let you know if the questions are ever answered.

Commentary & discussion:

The Next Web
networkers-in-the-city.com (French)
Shoq Value
OWNI (French)
Search Engine Land
webketing.fr


(Here is a short URL to this post: http://is.gd/ceSKJ)

61 comments:

  1. I appreciate your point -filtering out tweets is a pretty shady thing for Twitter to do, especially when it prides itself on being open and up front with its users.

    However, your reaction seems incredibly vitriolic -if Twitter is such a "lame organization" with "pathetic" and "sneaky" habits...why do you even continue to use it? Most people who get this upset about something (i.e. Facebook's privacy changes) just stop using it.

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  2. I'm having no problems bringing up traditional RTs in Twitter search. If you are right about this, it would be an outrage, but I don't think you're right.

    I recently wrote a blog posting about this, so I'm interested to know how this pans out.

    http://djmeph.net/Fw

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  3. Sadly, pathetically, irritatingly, lamely, this news seems to be true, alas. No matter how creative you are, if you have the pattern RT @ in the Tweet, it now seems to be missing. For myself, I am going to change "RT" to "V" -- one less character. Stands for "via" -- stands for "Victory" ;)

    Social media gurus don't understand how their own tools are used in real life, and are social fascists. I thought Twitter was better than Facebook, but now it's once again a tie.

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  4. It is obvious to anyone who follows me on Twitter that I love Twitter.

    It's the inept management style and crass commercialization of the company that bothers me, and their constant failure to listen to their users.

    But the relationships I have with my peeps are incredibly precious to me.

    If you know of a way for me to communicate with all of them, in a similar way, on a different site please let me know about it.

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  5. Do you have the link to that claim? ("ANY TWEET WHICH HAS AN "RT @USERNAME" ANYWHERE IN THE BODY OF THE TWEET WILL BE FILTERED OUT OF SEARCH!") Where did you hear this?

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  6. Works for me...

    http://search.twitter.com/search?q=alphonseha+social+media

    The posts that people RT from me appear in search.

    It is only when I make a search for tweets directed to me that it doesn't show up. I am guessing it is because it doesn't start with an "@" so it gets filtered out.

    Otherwise, I still agree that Twitter's RT is very lame and frustrating.

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  7. I like the idea of using a single character to denote a Retweet but perhaps something arbitrarily abstract like a ^ or a ~ as the first char. Then again isn't it possible to just use R manually?

    Cheers,
    Mikel King
    @mikelking

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  8. I disagree.

    By removing what are essentially duplicates from search, it greatly improves the relevancy, variety and usefulness of search results. I am sure you would soon complain if you were to do a Google search and were to find the entire page of results to be exactly the same content just hosted on different domains.

    By using the new style retweets, you are providing twitter with a much better signal which can be used to rank particular tweets within a search.

    Chris Alexander

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  9. It seems like a blunt way of cutting down on RT spam/piggybacking/#tag hijacking to me, something which has been discussed at length and which I in principle support. True, it gives a "sneaky" feel and it appears a very blunt too, but what good does it do to search for something and see the same thing over and over? Personally it annoys the **** out of me when trying to follow #tag "chats" and discussions and people keep retweeting things that were tweeted just a moment ago. The redundancy is very frustrating in those situations...

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  10. How infuriating! I can't stand their new retweets!

    Thanks for the tips!

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  11. TR ftw! I'm totally using TR from now on :D

    Great great article. SO agreed.

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  12. Honestly, I don't mind the new ReTweets, but when you do it that way they don't show up on your page. If they changed it so that they do I would use that button all the time.

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  13. I didn't lookat it that way. I, for one, ways get tired of searching for things and just getting the same tweet 50 times before I can see anything original because some celebrity's minions all RTd it. Maybe this is what Twitter had in mind when they made this decision. Perhaps making it a search OPTION might be a better route though.

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  14. I might be missing something here, but if someone has already tweeted, where's the value in RT's showing up in search results? Wouldn't that just result in lots of duplicate search results?

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  15. Good thing to note. Although I’m not sure why Twitter would filter the search. It seems to be shooting itself in the foot!

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  16. I'm seeing identical results for both searches, and those results include RTs, in any position.

    If this story's true, it must have either been a glitch, not apply to the UK or reverted for now.

    Time will tell...

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  17. An outrage? Aren't there really bigger things in the world to be concerned about that whether or not you can search for things that start with RT. In the grand scope of life does this really matter that much?

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  18. when i use a 'traditional retweet,' i do so this way: RT.@whoeveriamretweeting - would the RT with a period following it be included in the filter process? also curious as to WHY twitter would put a limit on the traditional RTing process...

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  19. I see no outrage. I see an attempt of turning the search mechanism more effective and relevant. If a popular tweet containing the term "keyword" has 100 retweets, why should I see it 100 times when I Search for keyword?

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  20. seems twitter would want to leave retweets alone since it means increased activity. the previous change to the retweets was a turnoff because it left out the retweeter. as long as its left alone in our favorite apps then no biggie. as long as tweetdeck (my search tool and traffic center) gets twitter right then i'm cool.

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  21. This is actually a nice change. The original shows up, right? I'd rather not see a million rt's over and over again.

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  22. Dear Circle Reader:

    I tested it.

    As mentioned, at the moment, the search problem happens only in homepage-searchbox searches, and not in searches at http://search.twitter.com

    ReplyDelete
  23. We need to apply Hanlon's Razor here, I think. In other words: it's not "going to war", it's just cluelessness.

    Twitter is assuming that people are using classic retweets the same way they use new retweets, which is to say that they simply stick "RT @username" at the beginning and submit without comment. And if that were the only way people were using classic retweets, it would actually make a lot of sense to eliminate retweets from search - because they're just noise in the search results.

    Sadly, there isn't really a good way to implement that without just getting rid of all retweets - as they have - since there are so many different ways of commenting on classic retweets. Just changing the regex from "^.*RT @.*$" to "^RT @.*" wouldn't work because some people comment at the end, for example.

    As with removing replies to people you don't follow from your stream, Twitter has made a decision based on what the majority of users do - and the majority of users still using classic retweets don't comment on them, and so they're just noise in the search stream and Twitter is justified, if not right, in removing them.

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  24. I just tested it by typing "RT @username" in both search.twitter.com and in my twitter user web page seach (side bar). I got search results no problem. Could it have been a bug that they fixed already?

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  25. Dirty. Sneaky. Underhanded. Definitely not LOVING.

    You can use R/T likely too and that will still make more sense to people than TR. I have seen a couple of TR's over the past 2 weeks, maybe they weren't just typos.

    Many 3rd party apps use the RT so this is Twitter's snub to them it would seem too.

    Twitter forgets WHO made it BIG. THE USERS and the 3RD PARTY APPS!

    Controlling, manipulating twitter does not bode well. Their button is lame. It cuts out all conversation and interaction around a RT!

    Thank you for bringing this to awareness!

    @allaboutenergy who has used the "button" 2x since it's launch! I RT!

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  26. I am unable to see this. Try the following link:

    http://search.twitter.com/search?q=RT

    What I believe that the tweets with text "RT @xyz" are now rated low in search results. FYI: Twitter recently added this feature to order search results by relevance and popularity.

    :)

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  27. Alphonse,

    Yeah I updated my original post. The problem was only in homepage/searchbox searches, not in search.twitter.com searches

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  28. Actually, I understand why they're doing it. As long as they filter out retweets that start with "RT", it cuts down on the noise. Generally, when I add my comments to retweets, I put the comment first.

    But if it means they're getting ready to crack down on traditional retweets, they've already provoked an uproar.

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  29. I don't think Twitter is at war with traditional retweets. (Traditional RTs are incredibly annoying though. I absolutely hate them.) Twitter seems to be filtering all retweets outright from search on Twitter.com, not just the traditional style ones. On search.twitter.com, Twitter doesn't appear to be filtering out RTs at all.

    This is probably being done to improve search results as seeing RT @username message RT @username message RT @username message RT @username message RT @username message when looking for something in search sucks. This blog post seems premature to me.

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  30. What about if you Tweet something like:

    I heart @somename.

    That also includes "RT @somename" in the text. Is that blocked as well?

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  31. I've continued to use RT rather than Twitter's own retweet function because I do almost all my reading in lists and unless Twitter has changed things lately, it's retweet function doesn't show up in lists.

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  32. Dear Anonymous

    I think it's possible that would be blocked. But I'm not sure.

    ReplyDelete
  33. I'm a freelance Twitter application developer. Because of that, I often side with Twitter on matters like this, and this case is no exception. I ran the search in your demo - the one with the integrated search vs. search.twitter.com. And I much prefer - both as a user and as a developer - the integrated search - the search that returns only three unique results - over the one that returns many non-unique results.

    I was not aware of the change - it wasn't explicitly announced on the developers' Google group, or I missed it if it was announced. But relevance of search and enhanced search experience, both for seekers and sellers, is a high priority at Twitter. So I for one vote thumbs up on filtering "hand-made" retweets out of search results. They're noise to me.

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  34. Ray, do you think it would be useful if people adopted a new convention for cases when they don't simply RT, but add comments/modify? Maybe V (via) in that case, or RC (retweet+comment)?

    I think I'll start to use RC.

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  35. is not war on RT... is just common sense. one tweet can generate thousands of RT with maybe one word added to it: "wow RT...." "look RT ...".
    If I'm searching, I don't want to see 1,001 matches, just one: the original.

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  36. Mr Borasky

    It's kind of pathetic,don't you think, that you were not informed?

    You're a freaking developer, for crying out loud.

    I think many of the comments are missing the real point here:

    1. When was this implemented?

    2. Why was it implemented?

    3. Why were the customers not consulted?

    4. Is this the end, or just the beginning, of trying to damage traditional retweets?

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  37. Oh a 5th question:

    Why was it done in secrecy?

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  38. I think they are filtering out the "RT" from search to stop numerous amounts of the same tweets showing up in search, such as ones from celebrities. I don't think it's a war. You're just over reacting.

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  39. I thought there was something wrong! So many people saying they were "missing tweets" or "where have you been", etc. I always use search.twitter.com so could not pinpoint it. Excellent research work, Ray~!!

    And yes! Why the secrecy? If eliminating RTs is to take the strain off of servers (I would hope that is the reason), why wouldn't they just announce it at status.twitter.com?

    I despise the RT button since the tweet doesn't show up in the stream, allow interaction between the original poster and retweeter and now it does not show up in home page search results, either? It takes the "social" out of social media.

    Thanks again, Ray, could definitely tell something was up. TR, R or V it is!
    x0x
    Anita Nelson @ModelSupplies

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  40. I would like to add something. Often the reason to RT is to amplify the tweet. What if there is an important occurrence like "Nashville flood", which desperately needed and still needs attention, but the people tweeting about it had under 1000 followers. When those tweets are lifted up by RT, they are able to reach more people to get the word out and spread awareness.

    This is VERY SERIOUS since it is taking the voice away from smaller accounts when they need it most. Who would be searching for "Nashville flood" - no one. I do not think the RTs are going through the stream, either. And the original posters were not using tags, etc., were in a horrible state of mind - did I mention they desperately needed help?

    I think unexpected crisis situations are where this will matter most. I also personally suspect this was the case during Nashville flood. It was extremely difficult to get that message out and took over 24 hours to get it trending!

    Thanks for listening - no, I'm not in Nashville, but some of my friends are and asked me for help directly, or I would not have known it even happened.
    x0x
    Anita @ModelSupplies

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  41. I don't understand the problem. If it's a retweet then the original tweet will be included in the search, just not all the retweets which (I'd imagine) seriously impede the system and quality of results.
    If I did search and had 1000 results all effectively the same result retweeted that would be rubbish wouldn't it? Am I missing the point? (I'm not very good at the tech stuff).

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  42. I can understand why a prolific retweeter, such as Mr. Beckerman, is mad at this news. Mad that your tweets are being filtered out, huh? I'm glad that Twitter is proactively filtering out noise.

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  43. At the end of the day, I believe this is due to Twitter trying to lessen the load of Tweets on their system. It reminds me of the fact that if I start a tweet out with @RayBeckerman that no one will see it unless they also follow you.

    None of the above reasons are good in my opinion...essentially "punishing" users for system flaws. But you get what you pay for.

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  44. All the secrecy and unexplained nature doesn't bode well. still Twitter has a VERY small window for which this isn't a bad thing. As others have said it can get annoying to do a search and have the same post RT'd over and over and over again.

    This single move by itself isnt a bad thing in my opinion. There are other easily accessible search options that don't filter. And this really IS helpful.

    However like you I fear this is only the first step. DLC in video games lead not to developers creating more content to satisfy the demands of their user base but creating content strictly for the purposes of milking money from us. 1/3 of the game price in costumes? the game ending for an additional cost?

    No sir I may disagree with some of your sentiments regarding twitter usage and agree with the idea of this action twitter has taken but the execution leaves it clear that this is an undesirable action.

    If they'd simply told us they were doing it that would have addressed maybe 4 of your 5 questions (even if not any of your actual concerns), and this would be a minor deal rather than the major one it is currently.

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  45. Dear Dave at Twitter Tips:

    Thank you very much for your comment indicating your dialogue with Charles at Twitter.

    Could you do me a favor and ask him these followup questions:

    1. When was this implemented?
    2. Why was it implemented?
    3. Why were the customers not consulted?
    4. Is this the end, or just the beginning, of trying to distinguish traditional retweets from tweets?
    5. Why was it done in secrecy?

    ReplyDelete
  46. Dear Anita ( @ Model Supplies )

    The point you made is so very important. RT's are indeed used to amplify, and for Twitter to mute them is wrong, and in some cases might even be dangerous.

    ReplyDelete
  47. When I read these comments, I again realize how little Twitter and many others understand how it is used by people who are using Twitter for more than idle narcissism and celebrity watching. I often amplify and characterize others' tweets, adding hashtags and bringing to light voices that are not sufficiently heard. And when in, say, Azerbaijan, or Russia, there is a youth demonstration and people are being beaten by police, RTs are needed to get the word out. The original Tweeter may only have a few people following him, but RTs make his voice louder. The Caucasus is a very small Whoville, and with this new RT policy, Twitter is stifling democracy efforts.

    Here is an example of an RT I just did (but changing it to a V). It would have been suppressed under this new search policy:

    goldentent: Have a look at #Kadyrov's Potemkin #architecture projects: V @giocomai @runetecho: #Russia: Photos of #Grozny http://bit.ly/dcJZkL #Chechnya

    Here is @giocomai's Tweet:

    giocomai: RT @runetecho: Russia: Photos of Grozny http://bit.ly/dcJZkL

    Contact, context, and hashtags added. Please--rethink this! Classic RT is not just a stamp!

    ReplyDelete
  48. not sure why you'd want RTs to show up in your search unless you really just want to count how many times something was RT'd. I don't get it. Sure, they didn't announce the feature, but they never do.

    I don't know where the righteous indignation comes from; this seems like a pretty small thing to be upset about. I guess I can't see how this makes any kind of negative impact.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Ray, you asked for an alternate. There is one, http://identi.ca it works the same as Twitter but has some additional features.

    ReplyDelete
  50. My initials spell out "RT" and so if I sign any of my tweets with it (ex. my company uses CoTweet and we all have CoTags; mine is ^RT) then my results get filtered out, *even though* what I post is not a re-tweet.

    Very lame, poor investigation into possible Twitter use cases.

    Very annoyed.

    ReplyDelete
  51. So, who made you authority on RT policy?

    I honestly do not see a problem other than that you want your username to be more easily caught by search engines.

    on twitter.com, on your right, you have a 'Retweets' menu where you can look at who retweeted you.
    Also, when you receive one of the new retweets it says how many who did retweet it.

    You also have to take into consideration that, let us say, you search for something and just want to show 20 results on one page; it will for sure become annoying if 15+ of these results are the same retweet.
    And like other people have pointed out, it gets a bit frustrating when you get the same retweet five times in one day.

    Do not take this the wrong way, as I am referring to your comment guidelines, but I suggest you spend a bit more researching your articles so you don't end up having to update it constantly and correct your assumptions.
    I know it might take more time, but it is better when you have all the correct facts on the table and then write an article.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Dear Dr W

    I debated about rejecting your comment for violating the rudeness rule, but decided to let it stay. Please next time be more civil.

    1. I'm not an "authority". However, (a) in this fast paced world of social media, I don't know who is an "authority", and (b) I am an avid customer of twitter's services, and twitter should listen to its customers.

    2. I have no interest whatsoever in my name being in search engines. My interest is in not allowing the traditional retweet -- which is the mainstay of the "social" aspect of twitter -- to be marginalized. In case you haven't noticed, this new search issue is not an issue in and of itself, it is part of a campaign by twitter -- initiated for commercialization purposes -- to substitute "rubber stamps" for retweets.

    3. As to what is wrong with the new pseudo-retweet rubber stamps, I have explained that in another blog post, "Twitter tip: don't use Twitter's pseudo "retweet" button" #TR http://is.gd/4YRfB

    4. You complain that I don't have my "facts" straight, but point to no "facts" I've gotten wrong, so I can't help you there.

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  53. Dear Ray,

    I find it sad you actually considered not to publish my comment. I guess the tone I wrote it in is more acceptable from where I come from. As I said though, I do not mean to be rude. Also, I have no time to beat around the bush. I say it like it is.

    1. Yes, you are a customer, but a customer who is not paying for the service. In other words, your rights as a customer are limited.

    2. Again, as some have pointed out, who wants to receive and, when they do searches, have the same RT pop up several times. With the new RT I can see that some tweets have been RT'ed 100+ times. So when people are still using the old way of RT'ing, I think Twitter is trying to improve to search function so you do not end up having to sift through 100 tweets of the same thing.

    It also reminds me about the controversy regarding the feature that you could see your friends @ tweets. In the end it showed that only 3% used that feature. So, I will not be surprised Twitter has similar figures regarding RT.

    I also want to add that I do not care who RT, I care about the tweet itself. I find it more important to get the message out than to get fame for it. Because in the end, of you helped spread a message you did it for the community, not for yourself.

    3. I read that before commenting, and it that is why I mentioned the menu item you find on twitter.com. Also, some of your issues are out dated.
    The main product is twitter.com. That you might not see the new RT in a twitter client is not Twitters fault, it is the makers of that client.

    Tweetdeck actually has the function now: http://ur1.ca/02eue

    Here is the Twitter API changelog: http://ur1.ca/02ew1

    And here is a list of recent changes: http://ur1.ca/02ewd

    4. Uhm... I see no reason in repeating what you have already written. I will be deliberately vague and tell you that you at least once admit that you had something wrong and updated the article.

    Hopefully you will publish this comment aswell.
    At least I did not call your article pathetic, which you decided to call Twitter.
    As I have a blog of my own I like to keep it clean, but at least I allow my commentators to be as blunt as I am.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Dear Dr W

    1. I am a customer who has paid them no money but supplied them with tons of free content.

    2. Again you are being repetitive and off-topic. These are all matters that were discussed in my blog post and comments about why the rubber stamp retweet is not actually a retweet at all.

    3. Again you are off-topic. If you want to debate the merits of the pseudo-retweet vs. traditional retweet, go to the blog post devoted to that subject, and do it there.

    4. I am of the school that higher level discussions, and a greater sense of comraderie, are produced by eliminating rudeness and cheap shots; the track record of the commenters on my Recording Industry vs The People blog has proved that.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Dr W

    I don't understand the "vague" point you are making.

    If you're saying I made a mistake, you should identify the mistake.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Just a few thoughts on either side:

    1.) If you were searching for a specific topic/hashtag, then yes a million retweets of the same sentence is may not be very helpful. However, a search which only shows originals would be extremely helpful because not only would it be less cluttered but you would be able to see the original authors who made the statements.

    2.) On the other hand, some people add comments/answer questions in the retweets and if you wanted to follow a particular line of "conversation" you might WANT to see those RT's.

    3.) Additionally, I like to know who is retweeting my own stuff, a lot of people like to know that and comment back, and it would be nice to be able to see all that activity.

    4.) Knowing that there are times when both of these approaches are the best approach, it might actually be helpful to know that you can go to search.twitter and see everything, or go to the search box in your sidebar and see originals. You've got options.

    5.) The main things I'd want to know is a.) why didn't Twitter mention, "Hey, by the way we changed this.." and b.) are ALL of the instances when I am retweeted by any method showing up in my stream?

    6.) I also think that any time you click on a hashtag you should see all the search results, regardless, because even with all the redundant retweets, you can accurately judge the activity and popularity of the hashtag. It would be really cool if at the top of the page, after you searched the hashtag, you could click on an "remove the retweets" option. That would be best.

    7.) I never use the new retweet feature. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  57. I love the innocence of you guys! :)

    The reason why Twitter want to kill this in fact, is to suffocate free advertising, especially important now that they are rolling out their sponsored tweet platform.

    In particular, Marketers can currently use a service such as socialoomph and do the following e.g.

    get several hundred bot accounts programed into a scheduled tweet scenario, sending one original tweet per twitter account, then scheduling duplicate RT @ to every one of the bot accounts just ONCE.

    Net Effect being hundreds and hundred of RTweets typically tagged with a Bit.Ly link which is then reported back to the 'client' who is paying per click.

    One thing I pride myself in, is my ability to take an impartial stance - The above *is* the reason Twitter wants to snuff out RT and I believe it is a good reason.

    I think everyone needs to realize that ALL Corporations are Evil and we need to pull our fingers our and operate a truly open Status Net / P2P Network that runs on ALL OUR PCs and relies on no profits - an infinitesimal charge levied per user amounting to less than $1 a year would be sufficient for us to throw these monsters from our backs.

    People & Planet - Not Profits!

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  58. "ANY TWEET WHICH HAS AN "RT" ANYWHERE IN THE BODY OF THE TWEET WILL BE FILTERED OUT OF "

    yeah, since it's so useful to see the same message 4000 times rather than the original source of it.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Very lame, poor investigation into possible Twitter use cases.

    ReplyDelete
  60. not sure why you'd want RTs to show up in your search unless you really just want to count how many times something was RT'd. I don't get it. Sure, they didn't announce the feature, but they never do.

    I don't know where the righteous indignation comes from; this seems like a pretty small thing to be upset about. I guess I can't see how this makes any kind of negative impact.

    ReplyDelete

I have a few simple comment rules:

(a) No

1. rudeness
2. falsehood
3. deception
4. unfair tactics
5. comment spam
6. shilling or trolling

(b) stay on topic, and

(c) if you're anonymous, use a handle so we can distinguish you from other anonymous commenters.

Thanks for commenting.

Ray