DISQUS

Ken Seto · 2 months ago

I'm not sure I like this feature. I like being able to add my own commentary before a retweet. I know others do too.

Evan Pederson · 2 months ago

This is definitely my biggest concern.

Jennifer · 2 months ago

Ditto that.

CarmenSisson · 2 months ago

I like the way it frees up characters -- IF we keep the ability to comment. Sometimes I'd love to comment, but there are no characters left.

I agree the pictures are messy. At least limit it to only three or four.

And as others mentioned, it's clunky and counter-intuitive to open another pane to see retweets. To me, retweets are the heart of Twitter. I learn so much by following people in my industry. This throws an obstacle in the beauty of the retweet -- its transparency. Anything that creates a barrier to dialogue is a problem, in my opinion.

popartdiva · 2 months ago

I'm confused - what's the bloody point? Is this just another way for Twitter to gather stats? What was wrong with us simply RTing - yes, it required a little work but didn't that keep the RTs in a higher level of content?
So, something so simple and elegant - the 140 character tweet - is going the way of over complication, sigh. Excuse me, I have to go churn my butter now.

shauna. with a u. · 2 months ago

Hate it. Won't use it. I already have a nice little Greasemonkey script that puts in a RT button and does RTs the "right" way -- in other words, the way that's become the standard. This silly tinkering with what already works reminds me an awful lot of why I use Facebook so rarely these days.

Barbara WL · 2 months ago

you can still add a comment to the retweet right?

Ken Seto · 2 months ago

From the looks of it, it doesn't look like it supports adding commentary the retweet. I hope I'm wrong because I believe this is an essential part of retweeting.

Becky Blitch · 2 months ago

I agree with you completely; however, I also wonder how developers' implementations of the "feature" will shape the landscape. What if your client of choice adopts the new scheme -- to do an "old style" RT you might have to copy & paste, etc. Will people feel strongly enough about it to do that? (I will!) Will some developers choose to keep their RT buttons as they are now? (I hope so!) Seems to me that decisions made by Tweetie, TweetDeck, etc will affect this as much as anything.

Wesley Williams · 2 months ago

I think removing the editing ability from RTs is a good move, it ensures original sources are always credited.

Ken Seto · 2 months ago

Retweets allow people to share tweets with others but more importantly, adding commentary to the retweet adds to the conversation which is the whole point of Twitter no?

Srini · 2 months ago

From what it looks like, I think it will be like the 'Like' feature in friendfeed. You like somebody's tweet, you click on the retweet button, and it appears in your followers timeline, credited to the original tweeter along with a note that you retweeted it. I hope there will be a way to add your own comment, even if it's not to be, nobody's going to prevent us from using the old RT method.... we can use the best of both worlds. Looking forward to the feature.

Francois Botha · 2 months ago

From the discussions on Google Groups, it seems that comments WILL be possible.

A.J. Sequeira · 2 months ago

No, you cannot and that's one of the reasons I intend to boycott this retweeting method and stick to the old one. This is another example of how Twitter mires a user-generated features when it adopts that feature by failing to understand how people use the service.

Ken Seto · 2 months ago

Agreed, I can't believe Twitter doesn't even understand how their users use the service. It's just baffling.

Panic · 2 months ago

+1

Reminds me somewhat of the @ fiasco of who could see the @replies or not.

abutterflyloves · 2 months ago

I love the RT for sake of adding my own tweet commentary. But as I typed that last sentence, I reread it, and said, "Man, I need a life." (speaking only of myself)

Steve Woods · 2 months ago

Agree that it would be desirable to free up the portion of the 140 characters typically taken by the RTing we do. I will definitely feel a loss at not being able to type in my own information prior to the RT.... Kind of makes an otherwise personalized appreciation rather robotic, and less likely to happen...

Keith · 2 months ago

Hate it, takes away the fun of an RT.

teaneedz · 2 months ago

TWITTER: Listen to all of this great feedback .... your users are speaking clearly and passionately about their concerns and feature requests. Listen well.

Baylink · 2 months ago

Additionally, lots of people use RTs (improperly, I think, but what can you do) as a *public reply* (you know, since Twitter #brokereplies a few months ago), and this won't work for that either, as commenters note below.

Do their architectural people actually, y'know, *use* the system?

karen iana cruz · 2 months ago

i think this is similar to tumblr's reblog. doing this, twitter is defeating it's purpose of being a sleek and simple-to-the-eye interface.

marcygordon · 2 months ago

RT's are of less value without the ability to add a comment. I don't see where comments fit in to the example shown. I agree with other posts below--Must keep the option to comment on re-tweets.

Glenn Batuyong · 2 months ago

One of the best features of retweeting the current way is the freedom add your own take or analysis on a tweet. In fact, many social media heavyweights and power twitterers agree that straight-up retweeting without adding anything personal from your own perspective doesn't give much value. The new method is just a stripped-down "pass-it-on" of news. Twitter: Give this more thought!

pcrampton · 2 months ago

I think it's important to add value to what gets tweeted. (Not that I'm great at it, but I have aspirations of being better. ;-) )

Wesley Williams · 2 months ago

Nothing is stopping you from tweeting about the same topic, but it's shouldn't be a RT in my opinion. RT should just be used to pass on the original source unedited.

Sgeo · 2 months ago

What happens when someone retweets with the old syntax?

Ken Seto · 2 months ago

This is a very good question. They better leave it intact and not eff it up like they did with @replies *grumble*

Nick Barker · 2 months ago

Looks more and more like Facebook with every passing moment which is a shame...Let it be different! Something needs to be able to accommodate multiple retweets, but this looks horrid.

abindenver · 2 months ago

Takes away a lot of the simplicity of the "one liner" look by adding all those pics. More like Facebook -- which I don't want. And good question...how will the RT look in your own stream? We'll see...may be great after trying it.

jdotcom · 2 months ago

It's weird because RTs will look like Trending Topics in a different way. And besides one important part of RT is to add value, commenting or sharing your thought about it. Will RTs become unpersonal?

Will Francis · 2 months ago

*prays that Twitter stays simple and doesn't mess it up with layers of crap like Facebook*

richrecruiter · 2 months ago

I hope it doesn't allow for comments. Too many people have bastardized retweets by retweeting something and inserting their [snarky comments] in what really should be a standard @ reply. Not everyone wants to see your conversation with someone else.

joel_hughes · 2 months ago

This is an interesting point.

Jamie Deich · 2 months ago

Don't like it. What about ppl who don't use the web. I hardly ever do since I use Tweetie on computer and iPhone. May not have a lot of room, but I like RTs the way they are with your comment at the front (or end) and RT in front of the original so you know what it is. Big question is what's it going to look like in your regular timeline, or will it show up at all? So far - thumbs down.

joel_hughes · 2 months ago

It'll be up to third party clients to implement this facility with the new API. I bet Tweetdeck et will do a VERY good job of how to handle the UI for this

Name · 2 months ago

I love the idea of a seamless RT as long as it includes the ability to add commentary. Nice work.

glencochrane · 2 months ago

10 steps backwards if this goes thru. People will just RT the old (current) way; copy a tweet and paste it with RT and their own comment. Painful but "networkable".
Twitter ftw ru doing entertaining this change? Stop now before you become TweetBook or TweetleUpon or just plain lame.

Kev Rowe · 2 months ago

Twitter doesn't need this.

Jason Dunn · 2 months ago

I hope they add an option to view a list of usernames instead of all those avatars.

mallorierose · 2 months ago

facebook keeps modifying to keep up with twitter; now twitter seems to be going a similar route (ie "liking") as facebook? not sure i dig. like others, i'd be incredibly disappointed if i lost the ability to comment before the RT

karla t. chamoun · 2 months ago

looks too much like facebook.

GLEN · 2 months ago

I'm guessing this will function like Direct Messages? You don't see it in the regular timeline, but need to go to a sub-menu? If so, that blows and is counter-intuitive to "Joining the conversation".

Tokyo · 2 months ago

What happens if 700 people retweet something? Are they saying they will only save the data for the latest 100 retweeting users? Popular news articles or other viral items are retweeted by far more than 100 users.

I agree with the posters who have said that they need to include the ability to add comments to retweets. Otherwise, it devalues the feature as it exists now.

aratoh · 2 months ago

This is awful, why make it so complex? They should just have a stat on how many time it's been RT'd and an option to see who RT'd. Also best part of the RT is the additional comments that you can make, where is that?

fernando · 2 months ago

i don't like this feature.

Ercüment Özen · 2 months ago

Looks messy, they shouldn't do that...

juliofragoso · 2 months ago

looking fancy

CantonDog · 2 months ago

Wait, so if someone retweets something, it doesn't show up in your regular Twitter stream again? Or it won't show up multiple times in this new retweet tab? Kind of confusing the way it's written here. Maybe that's just me though.

Chris Knox · 2 months ago

I think one of the best things about the new ReTweet feature (if I'm understanding it correctly) is that it frees up a few of the already restrictive 140 characters....so if you are one who hopes that your content will be re-tweeted, you don't have to factor in the character count of your username, the @ symbol and "RT"....just hope this functionality gets carried over through the API as seamlessly as possible...although two things still seem unclear - whose picture shows up in my timeline if one of my followers retweets someone who is NOT in my timeline? My follower who re-tweeted or the original tweeter? And also, what about the ability to comment with a re-tweet....would definitely be disappointed if this was not possible with this new method!

ashley · 2 months ago

i dont like it

Flowsion Shekar · 2 months ago

Looks awesome!

Kit · 2 months ago

I have a question, will the retweet feature let everyone see who the ORIGINAL tweeter was? I think that's important since that's the whole point of going through the RT process in the first point, to give the original person the credit.

pcrampton · 2 months ago

I agree with Kit. It's important to retain the original tweeter's ID.

It's also important to be able to add personal commentary before a RT-ed tweet.

Would someone explain what is wrong with what we currently do? I HATE the idea of not being able to add a short comment at the beginning of a RT-ed tweet. It's also important to retain the owner of the tweet - don't want to encourage plagiarism. Right?

bunnyhero · 2 months ago

if i understand correctly, this makes it quite clear who the original tweeter was. in the screenshot above, SarahKSilverman is the original tweeter. all the little icons below show the retweeters. what i might find confusing is that her tweet shows up in my timeline like that even if i'm not following her. i have to look at the row of icons to figure out which of my friends retweeted it.

Imran Jafri · 2 months ago

this looks ugly to me

redwall_hp · 2 months ago

Yep. I like the concept. (It should certainly increase retweets of posts that are already near the 140-char limit, and the timeline will be cleaner as a result of not seeing the same retweet twelve times over.) However, the mini avatars under the retweets add far too much clutter to the stream. (And think of all the extra HTTP requests!) I liked the original concept art better.

Also, there *needs* to be a way to provide your own commentary.

ikartik90 · 2 months ago

What makes you dislike it? Its going to give a new turn to twitter's social networking ways!

Jeff Shearer · 2 months ago

I think it makes sense with the incredible scale that twitter has achieved. When it was a smaller affair, retweets weren't as likely to get out of control with the number of users to mention. Now its getting to the point where you must omit some names to be able to retweet within the 140 character limit.

I agree with abindenver that this does have a bit of a Facebook feel, but I think that is an area that Facebook does better than Twitter, so I am happy to see it.

Everyone remember that these are mockups, this could be somewhat different at launch.

PJ Edwards · 2 months ago

I am very happy with this. While I am sure people will find a way to cheat the system to make themselves imaginary superstars, at least the inmates won't be running the asylum.

A.N · 2 months ago

oh~it's great,totally solve the problem that when people reply to you,but you don't know what they reply for which your tweet is.

Andrei M · 2 months ago

Nice one

Genevieve Besson · 2 months ago

this is the 3rd version I've seen. I'd rather wait for the final product.

EvelynLovesRobert · 2 months ago

Alright I guess...
We can add a comment right!?

Joe J · 2 months ago

I hate this. I'd love the have a retweet button, but I want to keep them in my regular newsfeed.

www.rhmartialfitness.com · 2 months ago

I personally think this looks quite cool and a fresh idea to twitter. Just have wait for the final outcome though.

Rich
http://rhmartialfitness.com/blog

benfoden · 2 months ago

Twitter needs to be extremely careful about how they handle this... And i'm sure they will do a great job, but they need to keep the simplicity and elegance of the system intact.

At what point does using RT @ become obsolete compared with this potentially confusing new feature of a service that already can be confusing to the average internet user.

grasshopper007 · 2 months ago

I think everyone has to wait until the final version comes out. Everyone is getting worked up for nothing...

justinrfrench · 2 months ago

looking forward to this new feature- should be good for businesses too :)
Justin R French

Σχολή Χορού · 2 months ago

Finally a move from twitter! competition make perfect (for the end users)

shortformblog · 2 months ago

A question worth asking: Will you be able to put a retweet link on your site, akin to TweetMeme or Retweet.JS, and have it automatically retweet like this? If so, this would be awesome.

Aurora Lee · 2 months ago

It's.. interesting. I'll have to see how it actually works before passing too much judgement. I can see this working well for straight up retweets, but perhaps using the old method if I want to comment. I'll also have to see how my Twitter client deals with it. I'm at 'wait and see' for now, but I foresee using both.

grace · 2 months ago

this reminds me of tumblr

karmelmo3 · 2 months ago

i just dont like the faces underneath i really dont want to know who else retweeted something somebody said thats wack...

Calvin Lee · 2 months ago

This thing is LAME! @Twitter just took the most power part of Twitter and trashed it! There will be mass confusion. You won't really now who the originator of the tweets are or able to give credit.

How will it affect people that use a twitter client, like Tweetdeck and people on mobile phones?

joel_hughes · 2 months ago

Because this is part of the API, 3rd party clients will have to play catch up. Obviously there's going to be a transition period between the old method and the new. My guess is that some tweeps will make it worth your while (in some manner) to use the new method which will help speed up the desmise of RT (imho).

Calvin Lee · 2 months ago

Retweet is the power of Twitter. This is just scerwing it up

Casie · 2 months ago

As someone who is new to twitter who finds the current method confusing this looks great to me. If I understand this correctly, if we want to commment in the retweet or simply don't like the new method there is nothing stopping us from using the old method. So from my perspective this offers us the best of both worlds.

steve white · 2 months ago

i hate RT @

Evelyn Edwards,CPA · 2 months ago

I wonder what it will look like on tweetdeck, perhaps another column?

bizl · 2 months ago

arent there better things to do like guarantee 99% uptime? rather than spoil business for other people

duggedup · 2 months ago

Retweets suck anyway. Most people retweet just to get noticed. They should do away with retweeting and than trending news would actually become useful. Retweeting is for lazy people and spammers.

Stilgherrian · 2 months ago

Gawd, I hope we'll be able to turn off that listing of everybody and their dog who retweets things! The core feature of Twitter is simplicity. By all means let the obsessive-compulsives and marketing-metrics pond scum drill down into that stuff if they want to, but not all of us are engaged in a relentless search to be popular, or attach ourselves to the popular.

joel_hughes · 2 months ago

I'd guess this is kinda up to the twitter client and the options they develop. I.e. I use twitter mainly for my Blackberry - if something of mine go RT'd a lot I wouldn't want that to fill up my stream but I would want to know how the tweet is "progressing". This could be a UI issue (and SocialScope on the BB will know how to solve that :)

chrishooper · 2 months ago

I think it would be cool. all they would have to do to keep the identity of the original tweeter would be to say something like "originally tweeted by 'so and so', and retweeted by: you and +100 others" I think that would work fabulously.

Sandy Duperron · 2 months ago

sounds pretty cool!!!

Sandy Duperron · 2 months ago

good stuff

Jessica Miller-Merrell · 2 months ago

If the new retweet doesn't allow to add commentary, can we accomplish this through our current RT methods. If so, I'm down with either.

Jessica Miller-Merrell

@blogging4jobs

Baylink · 2 months ago

It's crap, and the result will be that people will do it themselves. It provides no new functionality, and it misses the point, mostly: lots of RTs are trimmed, or have to be trimmed -- or are RTs from people like NYTimes, wherein I never bother to tag them as such anyway: they *get* the click through; I see on use in crediting their headline robot...

Delores Williams · 2 months ago

It makes sense because ppl can't RT some due to the long usernames. Although, I wonder if it doesn't look like you are saying whatever the comment is, and ppl get confuse.

Baylink · 2 months ago

Wow... yet another broken thing: *EACH AND EVERY CLIENT* is going to have to implement this. Uber, T-berry, T-fon, etc, etc, ad friggin nauseum. And yeah, this will fit on my 2.5" screen really well...

joel_hughes · 2 months ago

that's ok & is part of life - unless you're in charge of coding all of those projects :)

GravyTrain · 2 months ago

This feature is pretty doomed in my opinion. Half of the mainsteam apps will adapt, half will take longer.
Its going to be a confusing time watching EVERYONE evolve to suit this new format.

I dont see it working. Prepare for confusion and complaints

danieeeeee · 2 months ago

I like the old one.. Can you please add apps for nokia E63?

iPodTouchOfficial · 2 months ago

effin ugly. but it would "kinda" be a nice feature.

nickschmidt · 2 months ago

That is cool and all but why come up with this idea? When they really need to figure out a way to filter all the massive amount of tweets from all the people that you follow?

Twitter would become a lot more interesting and useful, if there was a way to filter the tweets instead of having to search or go directly to the twitter profile.

Agreed?

antennenkabel · 2 months ago

It is very familiar,
Unless they also introduce native threading, this is still killing the ability to add your own commentary as part of a RT, and in many cases a RT is the equivalent of “via” – acknowledging a source, and nothing to do with the words within the tweet.

catrionacs · 2 months ago

Seeing the picture - does it mean, there is not one timeline anymore? That I have to click around even more to get all content? Original tweets, retweets, my tweets/retweets, direct messages etc.. What's the sense of that? I would rather see tweets and retweets still at one glance. And even more thumbnails - why not keep the view as simple and clean as it is? I don't need more pictures unless they are content. How will that look on mobile phones? RT and 'via' has worked fine for me to notice retweets on different devices, computer or phone. Why are they changing something that works okay, did we ask for that? Keep it simple, people, and don't stuff just another great tool with more and more clutter.

joel_hughes · 2 months ago

It sounds a like a positive move - Twitter probably see it as part of the monetization strategy or they wouldn't be releasing it. My guess is that they want to be able to offer business accounts better stats on how tweets are retweeted/spread (some very interesting viral reporting possibilities there!). This also opens the door to options such a micro payments for spreading content.

Sandeep Garg · 2 months ago

makes sense.

MyMemories · 2 months ago

when will this be out ?

@The_No_Show · 2 months ago

Like Kit said: "will the retweet feature let everyone see who the ORIGINAL tweeter was? I think that's important since that's the whole point of going through the RT process in the first point, to give the original person the credit."

As one of the people whose name/avatar appears in this mock-up, this is confusing as hell - I didn't write that tweet, it was @gordonshumway but that doesn't appear anywhere that I can see. It ends up looking like my tweet, which it isn't. Credit where it's due - does the original tweeter get credit or not???

Andrea Mirone · 2 months ago

Don't like retweet as a separate stream. Why should they be put apart? I want tweets from people I'm following all in a place, and as far as I know people I follow and no others I like to see first who did the retweet then who was the original author. And I want the ability to add comment. The only good thing of this implementation is it shows how much a tweet is retweeted
Having a built in retweet is not a bad idea, but should grant:
- "Priority to the retweeter"
- Ability to add comment (it would be good to put added text in italic, or something else to distinguish from original)
- Grouping of retweets in order not to have retweeted tweet appear more then once in the timeline. Retweeted tweets should jump at the top of the timeline everytime retweeted by a follower (or go up a place everytime retweeted, or I don't know, the idea is they should be stay longer in the timeline than other less retweeted tweets).

Rob Quigley · 2 months ago

In theory, I agree with this: "Retweeted tweets should jump at the top of the timeline everytime retweeted by a follower." But, if Twitter is planning on having a RT tab then I think this functionality of jumping to the top is how it should work on that tab.

Name · 2 months ago

I think it looks good, does anyone know when they're planning on going live with this?

patrickkeenan · 2 months ago

Good concept, if its in the API then someone outside of twitter can make it look better. Just provide the functionality!

itscameronwood · 2 months ago

I just wanted a little button on the side of the tweet that says RT and I just click that and then it posts it "RT @blahblahblah......".

DiscoveredArtists · 2 months ago

I love it. Can't wait for it to be unveiled.

TheMileHighFan · 2 months ago

Terrible. Just adds more 'bloat' to an already fragile system. Twitter seems (and many comments support) to have missed the boat badly. I see this 'feature' driving many users away from the basic Twitter interface.

Angelo · 2 months ago

Looks cool

Bryan Andrews · 2 months ago

Looks good, I'll use that one a lot

facebook-503756230 · 2 months ago

Test

naturedog · 2 months ago

I did not understand a bit of that. but thanks for explainin' anyway.

Rob Quigley · 2 months ago

I like the RT changes Twitter has proposed. They are paving the way for a "what's most popular" by people you follow and that adds value for me. If you want to retweet with comment then copy and past the content again and add a comment. If Twitter wanted to support and tailor this functionality they might incorporate as part of a simple "quote" button feature to support the old school way of "commenting" on a tweet and not consider it a part of the new RT functionality. This allows for a quick comment on a tweet and the ability for that comment to show up as new on a follower's timeline. Also, please allow for the ability to hide the small RT avatars that appear below the tweet. This should be done in a user's settings if the RT avatars are going to be present across all Twitter pages. The avatars are going to be considered as bloat by many users. Use a link to toggle show/hide the avatars if set to hidden in a user's setting. Additionally, the RT avatar might be visually similar to a "Reply" where two avatars are juxtaposed to each other to indicate a relationship - maybe one on top of the other in this case (one on top is original tweeter and the one on bottom is the first retweeter by the follower.

Benjamin Dobson · 2 months ago

I don't like it. I don't like the way multiple retweets only appear once. I don't like the way you can't add commentary before the retweet. I don't like the way the retweeter is credited at the end, not the beginning.

As an example, if someone's in a particular mood, you can see that in a series of tweets they post. If one of them includes a retweet, under the old system it would blend smoothly. Under the new system it will look be embroidered with a different personality: that of the original tweeter. Different avatar, different username, no commentary. And if you've already seen that tweet retweeted, you won't see it at all. It makes Twitter far less personal.

That, and it's not as simple as the old method.

ikartik90 · 2 months ago

So twitter's really turning big, huh? That's great!

rodrigopill · 2 months ago

I like it!

lopi · 2 months ago

The mini avatars are totally not needed and look like clutter. Also, if the whole thing sounds so confusing to me, imagine what it will look like for the newbie twitterers. Simplify it.

mybrutegame · 2 months ago

Awesome! Can't wait till they add it.

Calum Brannan · 2 months ago

A natural progression..

dppallus · 1 month ago

Nice move forward. Makes it easier to evaluate promotions!