1Dec/09Off

ReTweet Tug of War: Twitter vs. Power Users

The battle over the new and old way of retweeting is in full swing. The battle between Twitter and its power users (who do most of the tweeting and retweeting) is raging in tweets and in comments on articles about the new feature.

On one side we have Twitter

New RT preserves the integrity of the original tweet.
New RT gives credit properly.
Organic RTs are messy and come in different flavors.
Organic RTs can be faked and become a form of spam and a problem for well-known people.
Organic RTs can show up multiple times in your timeline if they are RT'd by multiple people you are following.
New RTs are trackable due to being labeled as such behind the scenes, Organic RTs are not as trackable.

On the other side we have Power Users

New RTs do not allow us to add our own thoughts.
New RTs cannot be edited for length.
New RTs insert unknown people in to your timeline.
New RTs lack credibility because they do not show the person's picture who actually posted/submitted the tweet.
New RTs promote the highly followed Twitter users (they get the most RTs) and do nothing for the person who submitted it.

Power users say the new retweet basically nullifies the power and purpose behind the retweet altogether.

My Take

I think that Twitter may be looking at the "issue" of retweets from a one-sided perspective. On the Twitter CEO's (@Ev) blog post on the topic he stated that having the picture of the person who did the retweeting in front of the retweet has no value. I totally disagree. Showing me the picture of the person that I am following gives the retweet credibility and adds value to the retweet. It does this because I, in theory, trust the person I am following more than I trust the person they retweeted.

"The new RT, like some first generation software, looks good, is missing some key features, and needs further development."

Power Twitter user's two main complaints about the new retweet is that it takes away the ability to add comments and that it does not give them enough credit for the tweet. This can be solved by showing the person's picture that did the retweeting next to the tweet author and allowing them to add their own opinion. (see graphic below)

Now that Tweetdeck has integrated the new retweet functionality it will be interesting to see if the power users embrace it (since many of them use this tool). For br.st we have decided to hold off on implementing it for awhile. Twitter must be a little uneasy and unsure about it as well since they started asking for your feedback about it on the right sidebar of Twitter.com after you login.