Twitter is rolling out the new Retweet function and my account is one of the beta accounts that was able to test out the new retweet functionality. First of all, to even know if your account is able to use the new retweet you must use the twitter.com homepage as at the time of this article HootSuite, Twaiter and Tweetdeck don’t yet support the new Twitter Retweet function.
The first thing you will notice is that when you look at someone who you are following you see the new “Retweet” symbol which looks a lot like a recycling symbol. This symbol indicates you will see all retweets in your timeline from this users.
The next thing you will notice (when the new Twitter Retweet fully rolls out and your account has it) is that there is a new “Retweet” button on each of the tweets in your friends timeline and you hover over it to “reply, DM or fave” but the biggest change will be the new retweet symbol you will see in some of your timeline messages.
Now when somebody retweets a message you will no longer see a RT @username RT @username anymore, instead you will see this retweet symbol and the original persons tweet. No matter how many people retweet the message, the original message will always remain intact and there won’t be any prepended RT @username added to the retweet.
This will start making peoples tweets show up in your friends timeline even if you are not following them, so if one of your friends Retweets one of their followers you will see that persons tweet even if you aren’t following them. This may be confusing at first but if you look at the tweet, there is a new message at the bottom that tells you who the person was who retweeted it that was in your friend list.
These changes are dramatic enough that I think most twitter programs will have to do some serious recoding to figure out how to implement, they will need to add these little retweet logo’s into the tweet stream and have additional options to show who tweeted them. I hope Tweetdeck and Hootsuite will fully support the new Retweet functionality by the time it goes fully public.
I personally think this will be excellent for original tweet creators, their tweets will never be altered when retweeted. This also means though when you retweet an article you are only retweeting the original person who created the tweet, and the other people who retweeted won’t be included as happens with the RT @username RT @username…etc, which may means that you will not likely be as noticed for performing retweets and retweets will truly be more about promoting the original persons tweet instead of tagging long for the ride.
What do you think of the retweet functionality, let me know your opinion.
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Tags: info on twitter, new retweet, new twitter retweet, retweet followers, retweet friends, Twitter, twitter bits, twitter features, twitter functionality, twitter info, twitter news, twitter retweet, twitter review, Twitter tips, twitter updates
November 20th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Does anyone really read or respond to twitter? I use it once in a blue moon, but don’t believe I’ve ever gotten a visit to a blog as a result.
So, what’s the purpose of a retweet?
I’m really don’t get it.
Sandy
sandy´s last blog ..Golf = Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
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November 20th, 2009 at 7:56 am
7% of my poetry blog traffic comes from my interactive twitter poetry game, that is about 250+ visits per month or more. I do get about 50-100 visits on each of my blogs from twitter postings. Retweeting is a way of sharing other peoples information to your own followers. I also make about $20 per month from twitter.
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November 20th, 2009 at 8:16 am
I must say that they are certainly taking me a while to get used to, but the majority of my tweeting is actually performed via TweetDeck.
Karen @ Blazing Minds´s last blog ..Powermat Wireless Charging!
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November 20th, 2009 at 8:34 am
I am finding it very useful for retweeting followfridays, so I don’t have to worry about truncation.
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November 20th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Thanks for explaining it to us. I was thinking they meant that only people who follow the person you rt’d would see the message and obviously that’s no good. I’ve been using the feature and like it. I do see the benefit in preserving the original tweet, but I do miss being able to add my own little message after the RT to let people know why I RTed it, etc.
Heather Kephart´s last blog ..What is my purpose?
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November 20th, 2009 at 8:49 am
I think this retweet functionality on the twitter site is cool and it offers a different alternative to the millions of users.
The downsite of it is when I want to retweet and to personalize the message, of course, that is something I can’t do anymore since the RT takes care of sending the tweet to the followers.
Regardless, I still liked it.
BTW, thank you for the superstar status bro! You rock!!!
Z
Zorlone´s last blog ..The Empty Room
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November 20th, 2009 at 10:04 am
It’s nice to see Twitter finally adding this functionality.
It looks like Twitter might be learning from all of the third party apps out there like Seesmic. I currently use Seesmic because I like the columns and Facebook integration.
Extreme John´s last blog ..Pictures of Girls in Limos
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November 21st, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Hi Dragonblogger,
The Twitter retweet function has it’s down side. You can’t alter the tweet at all, you don’t even get a chance to review it before you retweet. For example, if someone tweets one of my posts, I like to retweet them and add a “thanks” at the end. Or if I tweet someone else’s web link, I might want to add a comment like “Good read”. I am hoping that Twitter apps such as HootSuite will not conform to this new system.
I like to keep the option of using both versions of retweeting the old and the new.
Thanks for the post!
@Ileane
ileane´s last blog ..Top 5 Blog Topics
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November 21st, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Though you can’t add your own comments, you can find out who retweeted you by looking at your own twitter stream, it will show you if your tweets have been retweeted and show who retweeted it so you can thank them. But I do agree with adding your own message being valuable, sometimes its hard to do without chopping original tweet though.
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