Category Archives: Social Media

The new Twitter retweets: be afraid.

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The new Twitter retweet system has been unleashed, and it's a classic example of taking something that worked, and breaking it. Rather than simplify something most regular Twitter users understood and used rather creatively, they have now created a hybrid pastiche of behaviors where retweets will mean different things to different people, depending on how they were generated, and which client is in use when perusing them.

It's just nutty. I was contemptuous of this idea from the start, and early experience from most users suggests that I was right to be. It's an example of what happens when people who own a service believe that their narrow experiences represent everyone else's, and what they may or may not want. As I tweeted recently:

The two biggest lies in business are: "Our research shows.." and "Our customers say they want…"

The old method of retweet will still work, but you can be sure the Twitter clients will all handle it differently. But all in all, rather than improve the experience, they have simply made it very difficult to understand who sees what, and why.  Far from simplifying things for new, or casual users, they have greatly convoluted them. Even experts aren't quite sure what happens, let alone able to explain it easily.

I just don't have time to really explain all of this right now, so I will just list a few articles that try to explain what they have done, and let you figure it out. I will try and clarify my take with updates, so bookmark this for later reference 

If someone comes across a really solid explanation of how it all works, please Tweet or email me, and I will pass it on here.

If you have specific understandings of the behaviors (and you are certain about them), post as comments below. I will edit and include them in a more formal guide later.

Why Retweet works the way it does  — Twitter CEO, Ev Williams explains in a way that will the most make sense (as far as this sense goes) to social media geeks and people who enjoy reading self-serving corporate business case modeling repackaged in pseudo user-interest clothing.

Project Retweet: Why It Will Change Twitter for the Better —  Mashable's take on the new Retweet before it was released. I find this article to be sorely lacking, and a bit of PR puffery planted by Twitter in an attempt to justify something they wanted to do anyway, and got help explaining the rationale wherever they could.

Save the Retweet — Dan Zarella's excellent early effort to prevent this farce from ever happening in the first place. (Wasn't loading at press time, but probably will soon.).


Update:

The Reviews Roll In: New Retweet=#FAIL

On Shortening Or Changing Your Twitter Name

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Social networks are here to stay…

…and so is your Twitter name. While it's too early to say how social media is going to evolve, I am betting that Twitter names will become most people's key public identity for many years to come, if not forever. That's one reason I try to use "Shoq" wherever I can. It's short, memorable, and easy to type.

The latter is crucial. Microblogging messages (a.k.a. Tweets) are, by design, very brief, so every character counts. When your name is too long, it denies space to people trying to retweet your messages, or include you as some kind of "cc" in @mentions.  And short names are getting harder and harder to come by, so if you have a name over about 8 characters,  I strongly advise that you just bite the bullet now, and go find something short and sweet.

Relax, it's not a huge life change.

Fortunately, Twitter makes this less painful than many services, because when you change your user name, you're not actually changing the account; just the name. Thus, you don't lose your followers. They will all still see your tweets. You will have to make it clear to them that you changed the name, however,  so they remember to type it correctly when addressing you manually, and not via some client interface button.  This is a matter of blasting a few tweets for a few days and you're done.

While finding short names can be challenging, it's made easier if you remember that what your name is, is less important than that it be memorable. The days of screen names that reflect your personality died with AOL. Sure, you might feel you're "JustASunflower1982," but does anyone else think so, or care? No, they do not. They'd just as soon you be JSun82, so they can easily  remember,  type, and spot it among those tiny 9 point Tweetdeck typefaces.

How to find a new Twitter name

Just open the Twitter settings and start testing name availability until you find something that you like.  Just don't press "Save" until you're fairly happy with it.

Remember, it's not irreversible, so you don't have to be too neurotic or anal about this process. Remember, it just doesn't much matter. You are not your name, but only what you type. The quality of your output, and the name always get associated in people's heads fairly quickly. If you really get stuck, just Tweet me. I can usually come up with something for you, using whatever tortured renaming logic jumps into my head at that moment.  I'm sure I can convince you it's a good one. It's my only real skill. 

How to safely switch your account & followers to a new Twitter name

This video will tell you how to do that relatively safely, if you like spoken video tutorials. But don't be sloppy or slow, as the process can go awry if you mess up.  

I hate spoken tutorials, so here's a written one. Basically, to switch your existing name and followers to your new name, do this: 

  • Log in to the new (already existing name) in one browser (e.g.. Chrome or Internet Explorer).
  • Log in to your old name in another browser (e.g., Firefox)
  • Change the new account name to  newname_old. Press save. Then without delay…
  • Change your old account name ot the newname. Press save. Done. Your entire account and followers will be tied to the new user name. 
  • I advise that you keep your old name around to prevent others from stealing it. 
     
  • Note: You don't have to use two browsers, but you'll have to log in and out of them to switch, and this increases the time it takes, and someone could conceivably grab your names while in transition.

 

Twitter Now Blocking Duplicate Tweets

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Techcrunch reports that Twitter has implemented a new anti-spam feature that blocks duplicate tweets (with exactly the same text) in any 24 hour period.

If you try to enter text for a tweet that is exactly the same as a tweet you’ve recently sent, it will block it, saying “duplicate text” in a white drop down overlay (pictured below). It would appear that there is a time window for this, and it may be 24-hours. I tried copying-and-pasting two tweets that I sent a few hours ago, and those were both blocked. But then I tried one from two days ago, and it went through.

Now this is not entirely a bad thing, in my view, but it will require people like me, who try to reach followers at different times of day, to modify the tweet before resending. I'd prefer an opt-in system by users who don't mind getting my duplicates, but that would require far more architecture than Twitter's Tinker toy system can support right now. As for whether this impacts Retweets, I can't see how it couldn't.  The Twitter system doesn't know anything about the "RT" signal, nor care.  It's just more text, so if you're in the habit of copying and pasting a retweet, these too will need minor edits to make each tweet a bit different.. Read the story details..