Firefox add-on by @jonpierce enables Traditional Retweets when using New Twitter ht @Sue_Koch

As many of you know, after years of twitter users clamoring for Twitter to provide a retweet button, Twitter instead provided a fake rubber stamp "retweet" button, rather than a button that facilitates classic or traditional retweets

I recently learned from @Sue_Koch of a Firefox add-on which provides a "Classic Retweet" button, in addition to Twitter's pseudo-retweet button, when you are using the "New Twitter" interface in Firefox.

It is called "Classic Retweet 1.0" and was developed by Jon Pierce (@jonpierce on Twitter).

It is available at this link:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/241011/

Jon has developed similar add-ons for Chrome and for bookmarklets.

For those people who use Twitter's internet interface, and who prefer the ease of a "button", this is an excellent solution.

I have used the Firefox version and it works perfectly. It provides exactly the type of button Twitter should have provided.

It only works in "New Twitter" rather than the old twitter interface.

And it does not work for tweets which are "protected".

(Short URL for this post: http://is.gd/iJTHg)

My "Some Friends of Mine" list

My recommended following/reading list is "Some Friends of Mine". It's broken down into a number of lists because of Twitter's 500-member list size limit.

The one criterion that it is based upon is excellence: peeps I have selected who greatly enhance the Twitter experience.

If you were to follow those lists, you would find a wealth of great material, and meet a lot of cool people:

Some Friends of Mine http://is.gd/bhGeO
Some friends of mine 1 list http://is.gd/bhCgG
some friends of mine 2 list http://is.gd/bhlud
SomeFriendsOfMine 3 list http://bit.ly/djRGs9
somefriendsofmine4 list http://bit.ly/9DICmN
SomeFriendsofMine5 http://is.gd/dtbxK
SomeFriendsofMine6 http://is.gd/eS4B8

Dear @refollow Please go to read-only & do it fast

I just learned of your being blocked by twitter & the reasons why, and saw your request for suggestions. Here's mine

I have written about the excellent service you provide, and have designated you as my follower management tool of choice.
http://rays20.blogspot.com/2010/04/why-need-for-follower-management.html

My suggestion is to go to a read-only mode and to do it quickly so that your wonderful service will be available again.

You will still be able to provide the filtering and the locking, which are the features that make your service unique and valuable.

I usually don't even use you for the actual unfollowing, because I have no way of discerning if someone might be on lists of mine; once I decide to unfollow someone I remove them from lists as well, but twitter -- for some dumb reason -- doesn't give you that option. So usually when I'm using your service to figure out who to unfollow, I click on the link to the twitter.com interface to see if they are on any lists. Sometimes I unfollow there, sometimes I unfollow back on your page, but it's really not important.

What is important is:

1. the good interface
2. the reasonable amount of time to load
3. the great filters
4. the locking feature

So please, go to read-only format, and do it soon. We need you.

Best regards

Ray

I'll be on the panel at "Monetizing the Band" ... Oct. 12th ... New York Law School #music #musicians

New York Law School is holding “Monetizing the Band.”

This event will instruct practictioners, law students and other interested parties in the art of making a band a money-making entity. We will be meeting with members of actual working bands, booking agents, artist managers, web 2.0 experts, merchandise professionals, publishing companies, licensing companies and independent record labels.

After the panels, there will be a general networking session.

This event is sponsored by Esq. Bank.

Please rsvp at brian.daitzman@law.nyls.edu

Tuesday, October 12 2010. Check in begins at 6pm. Must RSVP.
@New York Law School for Tuesday, October 12 2010 for the night in room W201 at 185 W. Broadway Campus NY, NY.

Here is the program:

The band panel will begin at 6:30pm

Jonny Dubowsky (Rock & Renew/Jonny Lives!)
Kenyon Philips (Unisex Salon)
Ezra Huleat (Black Taxi)
Erica Quitzow (Young Love Records/Quitzow)
Josh Hoisington (The Stationary Set)
Maya Azucena (Maya Azucena)

Industry Panel 7:30

Adam Shore (The Daily Swarm)
Natalia Nataskin (Agency Group Lawyer)
Jeremy Holgersen (Agency Group)
Justin Shukat (Primary Wave Music)
Peter Shukat (Lawyer)
Mark Weiss (Artist Arena)
David Mazur (Masur Law)
Adrian Perry (Tab the band/ Weil)
Barry Heyman (Heyman Law)
Adam Jordan (Rely Records)
Jake Ottman (EMI)
Veronica Gretton (Independent Manager + Publisher)
Rob Shore (Business Manager)
Ray Beckerman (Lawyer)

Brian Daitzman, JD
http://www.linkedin.com/in/briandaitzman

Dear @Twitter management. Twitter IS a social network. Duh.

[Update: on 10/16/10 Josh Elman said we can use Twitter however we want to.]

Recently I pointed out an article in which a Twitter executive [@joshelman] said informally that Twitter is positioning itself more as an information provider than a place to "engage" and "waste time".

Today I came across an article in readwriteweb in which Twitter has formally gone on record as (a) denying that it is a social network, and (b) claiming that it is a content provider.

Twitter is NOT a Social Network, Says Twitter Exec
By Sarah Perez / September 14, 2010 11:32 AM

Kevin Thau [@kevinthau], Twitter's VP for business and corporate development, announced during a presentation at Nokia World 2010 today that everyone's favorite micro-blogging network is not actually a social network.

It's not, you say?

No, says Thau: Twitter is for news. Twitter is for content. Twitter is for information.

Complete article

Ever since its inception, when Twitter said it's a place for people to "update" their "timelines" with their "status", its management has demonstrated that it has no true understanding of what Twitter is.

Their war against traditional retweets has further demonstrated this lack of insight.

Anyone who has followed Twitter's own statements of what Twitter is, has missed the boat.

These recent announcements -- in effect saying that twitter is no more than a collection of RSS news feeds -- demonstrate more of the same.

Why did they make these announcements? I'm guessing that they're striking some lucrative deals with "content providers", and/or advertisers, and think this is a way to get more money out of them.

A better way would be: "know thyself".

(A shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/d7B5jh)

Why is @twitter monopolizing URL-shortening? how will this affect us?

I received the following notice by email from Twitter. As I understand it, they're intending to monopolize all URL-shortening used on Twitter by the end of the year.

I have 3 questions. Question number 2 is rhetorical.

1. Am I reading this right?

2. Why are they really doing this?

3. How will it affect us to have no choice on URL-shortening?

Update 2: t.co URL wrapping

In the coming weeks, we will be expanding the roll-out of our link wrapping service t.co, which wraps links in Tweets with a new, simplified link. Wrapped links are displayed in a way that is easier to read, with the actual domain and part of the URL showing, so that you know what you are clicking on. When you click on a wrapped link, your request will pass through the Twitter service to check if the destination site is known to contain malware, and we then will forward you on to the destination URL. All of that should happen in an instant.

You will start seeing these links on certain accounts that have opted-in to the service; we expect to roll this out to all users by the end of the year. When this happens, all links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL.

What does this mean for me?

* A really long link such as http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048 might be wrapped as http://t.co/DRo0trj for display on SMS, but it could be displayed to web or application users as amazon.com/Delivering- or as the whole URL or page title.
* You will start seeing links in a way that removes the obscurity of shortened links and lets you know where each link will take you.
* When you click on these links from Twitter.com or a Twitter application, Twitter will log that click. We hope to use this data to provide better and more relevant content to you over time.

Thanks for reading this important update. Come and check what's new at http://twitter.com.

Thanks,
The Twitter Team

A lack of competition always hurts consumers. If we're stuck with Twitter's url-shortening, it seems to me, this can only hurt us.

I wonder if it's legal for Twitter to condition our use of Twitter on our use of its URL-shortening service.

Sounds like an unlawful tie-in, similar to Microsoft's initial attempt to force Windows users to use only Internet Explorer.

It's an attempt by Twitter to leverage its strong position in one market -- a preeminent position in socially interactive microblogging -- into a monopoly position in what is presently a wildly competitive market in which it has no presence at all -- URL shortening.

(Short URL for this post: http://is.gd/fiwfM)

Why we should use independent apps, rather than rely on Twitter's

According to this interesting article on BusinessInsider.com, which was pointed out to me by my friend @JustSweetAngel, Twitter is now trying to emulate or acquire the interfaces and applications made by independent developers, and then use them as "official" Twitter applications.

Users would be well advised to steer clear of Twitter's Twitter-only apps and interfaces, for several reasons.

Reason #1: Better to use applications that can support other social media networks

Assuming Twitter could, e.g., do as good a job as Tweetdeck or Seesmic in devising (or ripping off) a user interface (an assumption which is not free from doubt), it would no doubt be an application which supports Twitter only.

Right now, if you are using Tweetdeck, it supports, in addition to Twitter : Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Buzz, Foursquare, and (unofficially) StatusNet (formerly identi.ca), and probably can be configured to support others as well.

Seesmic, too, supports a number of social networks, including the ones mentioned above, plus cadmus, empire avenue, klout, ning, ping, and socialcast.*

No doubt Seesmic, Tweetdeck, and all the others, will be adding support for an almost infinite array of additional social networks, such as the ones mentioned above plus many others such as FriendFeed, Plaxo, Delicious, Blogger, Tumblr, Jaiko, Bebo, Flickr, Typepad, and on and on and on. See, e.g. "TweetDeck Android app will be more than just Twitter"

The trend in social media is clearly to (a) participate in more than one social media site, and (b) to use interfaces and apps which unite -- rather than divide -- your various social media accounts. And new social media networks are being started daily. To tie onesself into an interface or other app which supports only Twitter would be unwise.

Reason #2: Better to use applications that are designed for the user's benefit rather than Twitter's

A second good reason not to use Twitter's apps is Twitter's conflict of interest: Twitter's primary goal is to promote itself, not to provide you with the best software. You should stick with software that was designed to assist you, not software that was designed to force you to help Twitter in its monetization strategy.

For example, in an effort to promote monetization, Twitter has declared war against the traditional retweet, and done whatever it can to promote its "rubber stamp" pseudo-retweet button. After Twitter bought Tweetie, and designated Tweetie 3.0 as the official "Twitter for iPhone", it did away with traditional retweets in Tweetie.

So now, unlike other iPhone apps, which give you a choice, and which can be configured to use traditional retweets only, Twitter for iPhone gives you no choice at all: you must use the fake, or rubber stamp, retweet, or none at all.

You can bet that every other "official" Twitter application will be guided by a similar philosophy: generating dollars for Twitter's paying clients.

So another reason not to rely on Twitter apps is that they are going to be designed not for the convenience of us -- the people -- but for the convenience of Twitter's commercial and celebrity clients.

Stick with applications that are designed for your benefit, not someone else's.

Reason #3: Competition

As you know, consumers benefit from competition. If you have multi-network applications, then, if one network starts screwing you, you can easily "walk", without feeling any pain.

If you want to help Twitter build a monopoly so that you're stuck with them, then by all means use Twitter's "official" applications.

But if you want a choice of social networks, and want to be able to easily switch from one to the other, stay far away from such "official" applications.

Reason #4: Safety

Yet another reason came to mind to me on September 21, 2010, when this hacking incident occurred: "Twitter Mouseover Security Flaw Affecting Thousands of Users [WARNING]". People using twitter directly were affected. Those using independent apps were not.

Reason #5: Being current

Twitter is usually about 3 years or more behind its users and the independent app makers. Each time it announces a "new" feature, it's something it ripped off from the independent app makers, who have provided that feature for years.

* The references to specific networks are as of September 11, 2010. I'm not going to keep updating these lists, because I expect scores, even hundreds, to be added in time, and I expect most application makers to be working on applications that support multiple social networks. I.e., the number of applications, and the number of social networks they will be supporting, is basically infinite.

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

It's official. @twitter does think we're lemmings!

I can't believe my eyes.

On the heels of inflicting a "suggestions to you" promotion in the sidebar telling us who we should follow, our friends at Twitter have come up with a new annoyance which is at least as annoying, and even more insulting:

When you visit someone's profile page, Twitter now forces you to see a pop-up list of hyperlinks to other people who follow this person.

I.e., since I am a lemming, it would be of great interest to me to know who else is following this person so that I can:

(a) be "in" with the "in" crowd;
(b) be just like my friends;
(c) "trend";
(d) be a real "follower"; or
(e) all of the above.

Gag me with a spoon.

Fortunately, our ever vigilant, multi-talented, friend Beth Sheresh, known on Twitter as @kitchenmage, has provided us with the means with which to block this abomination, too.

And if you would like to block the "you both follow" popup Twitter has added to the right sidebar, as well, @kitchenmage has an app for that, too.

Who thinks these things up?

(Short URL for this post: http://is.gd/egybP)

Twitter's tweet button

Twitter has come up with a "tweet button" which it describes here (i.e. a button for blogs and web sites with which to share an article on twitter).

Here's an example:

Tweet
This is about 3 or 4 years late, and in my view not a big deal.

It's much better to use the various multi-site "sharing" buttons, so people can share an article with other social media networks as well; all of them include Twitter. E.g., on my blogs I use a "share" button supplied by "AddThis" (See bottom of this post). It accesses almost 300 different social media networks, including Twitter of course.

I've often used the ShareThis buttons, which seem to work just like AddThis, and give you multiple social networks through which to share the article. Also I've noticed that Google's blogger.com has started offering a sharing bar, with several sharing options, including Twitter.

Twitter's button sends you to Twitter only.

Why bother with it? If you want to have something like that on your blog or web site, why not use, instead, the "share" buttons offered by addthis, ShareThis, or blogger.com, or similar products.

Why did Twitter come up with it? I'm guessing they decided it was a good way to try to steer traffic to Twitter and away from other social networking sites. (Also I have it on good authority from @kitchenmage that twitter is using it as another vehicle to promoting lemming-like behavior by suggesting "who to follow".)

The button offers us nothing, except the opportunity to help Twitter build a monopoly and defeat competition.

PS If you know of other products similar to, and as good as, "addthis" and "sharethis", please let me know in the comments section, so I can add them to this post. Personally, I can't see why anyone wouldn't use "addthis". It works fine. If it gives you access to 286 social networking sites, why use a button that only gives access to 6 or 7, or 4 or 5, or -- as in the case of Twitter's button -- only 1? Thanks.

(Short url for this post: http://is.gd/eeELB)

How to block Twitter's suggested users on home page, thanks to @kitchenmage

Thanks to @jaycbee, @tweetsmarter, and @kim for bringing to my attention this extremely neat article, written by our ever vigilant, multi-talented, friend Beth Sheresh, known on Twitter as @kitchenmage, who apparently -- when she is not blogging -- is coding:

Removing Twitter's Recommended User to Follow "Feature"

Do you hate those recommendations from twitter as much as I do? Rhetorical question, I know. It seems to be the new thing to hate - and with good reason this time. It just recommended I follow someone who blocked me when I wrote Cook's Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knife Roll. Last straw, much?

I decided there must be a way to kill the suckers. You know what? There is a reason they call me Application Goddess. Done in 12 minutes. Take that, twitter.

Complete article

Beth has also devised additional filters to block the (a) 'other people who follow this person' list here and the "you both follow" popup here [although my latter filter has stopped working in Firefox, due to some apparent 'workaround' by Twitter].

(Short url for this post: http://bit.ly/a2hvux)
(Short url for kitchenmage's article: http://j.mp/b5Epdg)

Nice interview of me by @JessicaNorthey of Finger Candy Media

Social media maven, indie music promoter, and all around great lady, @JessicaNorthey, has posted an interview of me on the Finger Candy Media website:

Law+Twitter+Music+Nature+Friendship= @RayBeckerman

Meet Ray Beckerman, to quote his own Twitter Bio: “Law, social justice, nature, human & animal rights, arts, ecology, indie music & film”

If you are on Twitter and you pay attention to who really connects with others, gives back and actually makes the community/ecosystem better, then you are no doubt aware of Ray Beckerman! If you haven’t heard of him, he is an ambassador of what Social Media is all about.....

Complete article

How to set up HootSuite so it uses Traditonal Retweets rather than Twitter's pseudo-retweets

Hootsuite recently updated its software to try and trick people into using Twitter's fake retweets instead of real retweets.

Now I'm not a fan of Hootsuite, and wasn't even before this dirty trick, but for those of you gluttons for punishment who insist on continuing to use Hootsuite, here's how to set it up to reject the dirty trick:

1. Click on the stupid owl in the upper left hand part of your screen.

2. Go to Settings>Preferences

3. Unclick "Use Twitter Web retweets"

4. Save preferences.

You'll then be doing regular, genuine, traditional retweets.

(Here's a shortened URL for this post: http://is.gd/iCKFe)

How to set up Twittelator to do traditional retweets

In settings>retweets you'll be given 3 "retweet options":

Editable
Auto
Ask

Select "Editable" & save & you're all set.

(Shortened URL for this post: http://is.gd/iCKhB)

Advice: if you add a bunch of new people through Mr. Tweet, don't tweet about it

When someone follows me, and I have to decide whether to refollow them, the first thing I look at is their avatar and bio, primarily for the purpose of eliminating people. I will almost never follow someone based on their avatar and bio; I will only eliminate them from consideration based on those.

The second thing I look at, and the key to whether or not I will follow back, is the person's tweet stream, because that and that alone can inform me as to what kind of experience it will be to follow that person.

If the stream consists of page after page of tweets which say "@username I just followed you using @X 's chats with you through @MrTweet" .... I am not going to follow you back, because I will have received no information at all as to what kind of tweeter you are, other than that you are insensitive to the problem of generating spam.

So either, you should...

1. Only add a few people at a time using Mr. Tweet, or

2. Resist the temptation to tweet about it.

(Shortened URL for this post: http://is.gd/cNMGE)

Is it just me, or is it annoying when tweeps........

1. comment on tweets of yours without retweeting or even referencing the underlying tweet?

2. copy you on tweets for no apparent reason?

3. ask you to tweet stuff for them, even if they they've never done that for you, and even though it's not the kind of thing you normally tweet about?

4. tweet you just to start an argument with you?

I can't stand any of that. Here's the way I look at it:

Sending a comment, without retweeting the actual tweet upon which you are commenting, is IMHO an annoying practice. If you like it, retweet it. If you want to comment, add your comment to the retweet, but DON'T omit to retweet at least some of the underlying tweet. If you have a comment that's too long to add to the retweet, retweet first, and then comment.

If you reference me in a tweet it is going to take up space in my "mentions" stream, and I'm going to have to read it.... so make sure you have a reason for mentioning my name. If you're going to repeatedly comment on my tweets without retweeting them, I consider that a form of spam.

Today I got several tweets from someone apparently commenting on tweets of mine, but giving me no clue as to what they were referring to.

And I got several tweets in which someone else used my name to imply I'd tweeted something which I've never said, and never would say.

I am going to start blocking people who continue doing stuff like this.

Seems that @Twitter has finally reverted. Safe to use RT again.

Several days ago, on approximately May 18th, Twitter made a change to its searches. It began excluding from the search results of any searches initiated (a) by hashtag, or (b) from the homepage search box, any tweets which began with "RT" or which included "RT" anywhere in the body of the tweet.

Many of us complained, and even started a petition.

Several days later it indicated that it was dropping the filter.

The problem disappeared immediately, but then quickly resurfaced and has persisted for several days.

I tested today, however, and the system finally seems to have reverted to the way it was before, which is that traditional retweets containing the term "RT" are now no longer being shunned.

(Here is a shortened url for this post: http://is.gd/cm246)

Uh oh. @Twitter search continues to filter out retweets! #TR

I've re-tested it, and Twitter has not stopped its pernicious new practice of filtering the RT's out of searches from (a) hashtags and (b) homepage searchbox.

Better go back to using "TR" or "R" or "V" or "Via" etc, until we know what's going on. #TR

My initial report on the subject: "Has @Twitter Declared War on Traditional Retweets?" #TR

Twitter's false statement that it was stopping the practice: "Twitter removes the "RT" filter! #TR"

(Shortened URL for this post: )

Twitter removes the "RT" filter! #TR

Thank you to @low78 for bringing this article from Brad McCarty (@BradTNW) of The Next Web to my attention:

Twitter responds to missing RT’s saga.

Posted by Brad McCarty

We’ve been watching this episode since yesterday. Some Twitter users were noticing that anything with RT in it wasn’t being seen in certain search functions. The community as a whole went into an uproar.

It seems that Twitter heard that message loud and clear......

Complete article

(Here's a shortened URL for this blog post: http://twurl.nl/bc7l7p )

Petition against @twitter 's filtering traditional retweets out of searches #TR

If you're opposed to Twitter's new tactic of filtering traditional retweets which contain the term "RT" out of

1. hashtag searches, and

2. searches in homepage search box

here's a petition you can sign to demand that Twitter stop:

http://twitition.com/2sri3

(Here's a shortened URL for this post: http://is.gd/cgk7I)

Well, @Twitter is filtering "RT's" out of hashtag searches.This won't work I believe--> #TR

As it turns out Twitter's ban of traditional retweets, and of tweets carrying an "RT" designation extends not only to homepage search box searches, but also to hashtag searches, making hashtag searches much less valuable, and in some cases next to worthless.