Twitter Accidentally Installs Facebook’s Like Feature Instead of Retweets
We’ve all been there. It’s Christmas day and a relative has told you they got the present you’ve been craving. You rip the paper with your teeth only instead of the latest video game, Bonestorm, you find a copy of Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge. Everybody’s watching so you smile awkwardly and say how it’s exactly what you wanted. Worst thing is they think they got it right…
I’ve just finished reading Evan Williams post on “Why Retweet works the way it does” and felt the need to get some ideas down on why I disagree with some points. You should read it – it’s worth it, and a great outliner of Twitter’s reasoning.
(As a disclaimer, I don’t yet have the retweet functionality turned on on my account, but being a Social Media Douchebag, I’ve read countless blogs and tweets about the service. Hell, I’ve watched a video. Of a new feature. On a microblogging site. And now I’m writing about that feature at 3 AM. Someone shoot me now.)
On topic though, and as hinted at by this posts heading, I have some reservations regarding Twitter’s native implementation of the Retweet. I’m going to focus on two main points from Evan’s post.
Redundant redundancy
“Redundancy. If five people you follow retweet the same thing, you get five copies, which can be useful but is a lot of noise. This comes up even more in search. Popular users can get retweeted enough to saturate a search query … because they’re [now] trackable, we can take care of the redundancy problem: You will only get the first copy of something retweeted multiple times by people you follow.” - Evan Williams
I understand Evan’s point on this. I also understand that Twitter, and certainly search results, can become cluttered when there is a popular message that is being retweeted. Yes, it can be a pain, and yes it’s annoyed me at times.
However, what this solution does is take away one of the benefits from retweets. People new to Twitter often ask me how I follow so many people. The answer is I don’t. I don’t read everything, and I’m happy to tell people to let Twitter wash past you – if you miss something it doesn’t matter, because if it’s important you’ll likely see it later.
The problem is that the way you’ll often see something of import that scrolls by too quickly is by retweets. Many times when I catch news, links or just an funny message it won’t be because I saw the original message, or the first retweet, but rather the second, third or twentieth. Each increases the chance of that tweet reaching more people.
Does this sometimes lead to increasing the noise in the signal/noise ratio? Sure, sometimes, but I think if you’re following people who benefit your experience the good will outweigh the bad. I know that, as it stands, I’m more likely to miss messages I would like to see if people adopt the official retweet function over the current RT/Via/Hat Tip system.
Attribution smattribution
“The attribution problem: In order to get rid of the attribution confusion, in your timeline we show the avatar and username of the original author of the tweet—with the person who retweeted it (whom you actually follow) in the metadata underneath.” - Evan Williams
Much as with the redundancy, the new system, which will have retweeted messages appear like regular tweets in your timeline with the retweet info below in the metadata along with “posted at” and “in reply to”, ignores one of the benefits of the retweet, which is discovering new people.
If I see one of the people I follow who I like and trust retweet someone in the old “RT @ExampleGuy” style, there’s a high chance that, if I like what I see, I’ll click through and check out the person’s profile and possibly follow them.
I think that, as it currently stands and unless apps make it very clear through colour coding etc, that we’re more likely to miss, unless we look much more closely than before, how a message appeared in our timelines. This means we’re less likely to pick up on that tweet as a ‘gateway’ to other users, rather accept it as something that belongs naturally in our timelines. Evan discusses that having the profile pic of the user who is retweeting is irrelevant to the message, but I disagree – due to the fact I’m guaranteed to be following the retweeter this is an endorsement of the message, meaning I’m much more likely to read it.
This now strays into personal branding. I often advise people that, if they want to engage on Twitter, to have a noticeable avatar and change it as little as possible – the avatar of someone I don’t follow will not likely set off any recognition in my mind, certainly not enough for me to peer closely at the metadata.
What does this mean?
The long and the short of this is that Twitter have NOT added Retweet functionality – they’ve added a microcommenting system akin to Facebook’s ‘Like’ option.
At the Social Media Club Sydney before last Russ Weakley (@russmaxdesign) spoke about integrating microcomments into the redesign of the Australian Museum’s site. One of the best comments of the night, which I hope people took away, was Russ’ discussion on levels of commitment – those who won’t write a comment will participate in a microcomment which will often lead to deeper interaction.
That is to say, I like microcomments. I think they’re neato. I think they’re just swell. What I don’t think they are are retweets. Sure, it’s a nice addition to look at a tweet you wrote and see all the people who liked that update, and I’m sure many people will use the new function more than they would normally retweet due to the lower commitment and the fact that retweets won’t double up. Hell, I’ll be much more likely to throw my two cents in, knowing that it won’t clog up my follower’s timelines with blue Batman logos.
While this is all good, it does however ignore, as I covered above, the functionality which retweets currently serve. If you follow me you’ll know I most often use the “(Via @Example Guy)” structure, and often rewrite/add to the message before the link or important info – this removes the redundancy issue, while still achieving the things I like about retweets.
Microcomments work on Facebook as it’s a site one explores. Facebook remains an active, destination type experience while Twitter has become a more passive, companion type service that many people have always open through an app. People don’t dig back through their Twitter stream, meaning endorsements of a message Twitter has determined you must have already seen are redundant.
I have two final points:
1) There is lots of things I like about he way Twitter are integrating retweets – making them trackable and finding a way around the quickly expanding tweets is a great idea.
2) I’m not worried – all the current retweet structure, like the @ replies before it, came from the community deciding on standards and solving issues without Twitter’s help. If people don’t like this, I’m sure the users will come up with the solution.
In short (and I realise the foolishness of writing that at the end of what is now a two page blog post) I think it’s great that Twitter is constantly looking to upgrade it’s service – the addition of Lists, Connections and now retweets show a great commitment to improving the experience. I just think that, like when we’re handed a brightly coloured package from an elderly relative who really tried their best, we need to prepare ourselves for the fact – the ball is in the parking lot.
As I may have mentioned the other day, I have quit my job. There’s a lots of reasons really. Firstly, I didn’t like what I was doing. I fell into the job while desperate for cash after completing my Honours and it was never a good fit. Secondly, following the company being taken over by a much bigger player last year, it became a fairly tortuous place to work for anyone with a creative personality.
Q is for the questionable things you do
Note: I’m about to go all Comic Book Guy nerdy here, but most should still be able to appreciate the post.
