For the early adopters, they would probably remember how it was like before @replies was conceived. There wasn’t a proper way to reply to “what you are doing” tweets. Twitter expected you to tell people what you just ate for brunch without wanting a response.
But the tweeple wanted more interaction and started putting an “@” in front of the username they were responding to, followed by the message.
Just when Twitter has integrated @replies into the Twittersphere, another convention came up: Retweeting.
Third party apps started supporting the retweeting feature quite some time ago but the Twitter site only caught on now. They call it Project Retweet, which is in its first phase and expected to arrive in a few weeks.
What exactly is Project Retweet?
For the benefit of those who are a stranger to retweeting, it is basically a simple way to share interesting tweets by other tweeple. Most people share by copying and pasting the originator’s tweet and username before adding “RT” in front. Here’s an example:
This is an informal way of retweeting, which is created by Twitter users. However, copying and pasting the original message can be quite a pain. Third party desktop apps tried to make things easier by incorporating “reposting”, which works the same as retweeting; and creating retweet widgets for users to include in their sites. With all that, I guess it’s pretty much time for Twitter to make retweeting a formal and convenient practice.
According to Biz Stone, Twitter’s Cofounder:
“Retweeting is a great example of Twitter teaching us what it wants to be. The open exchange of information can have a positive global impact and the more efficient dissemination of information across the entire Twitter ecosystem is something we very much want to support. That’s why we’re planning to formalize retweeting by officially adding it to our platform and Twitter.com.”
And here’s his simple sketch of what it would be like:
Note “retweeted by” attribution and “retweet” option.
This would mean that you would never see “@” or ”RT” in retweets again. What’s more, you would also see all retweets by people you follow no matter if you are following the originator of the retweet or not. If you are not interested in those retweets, you could always turn them off.
Here’s a draft of what to expect!
Retweets would be consumed in 4 ways:
1. Retweets in the new home timeline
This includes all retweets with only the original tweeter’s username. This makes the home timeline look cleaner and easier to consume.
2. Retweeted by me timeline
This is where you would see recent retweets that were retweeted by you.
3. Retweeted to me timeline
With so much activity going on in Twitter, it is easy to miss the retweets of people we follow. This timeline would help you keep track of shared information that is valuable to you.
4. My tweets, retweeted
Now you can easily track who are the people retweeting you and observe which of your tweets are being retweeted.
These timelines would definitely help make the whole retweeting practice easy and neat! Can’t wait for its launch!
When’s the launch?
We would be expecting the launch in the next few weeks and the first launch would be limited to a small number of tweeple, as of all test periods.
“The first launch of this feature will probably be a limited subset of folks for a short period of time so we can get an idea of how it works from a system perspective. After we kick the tires a bit, we’ll do a full launch to everyone.”
How are third party developers affected?
Will developers have time to integrate this new formal retweet system? Twitter is offering API documentations to ensure that third party apps don’t break (unless they want to). Running on such a tight schedule, we are pretty sure that some third party apps would lag behind but not by too much.
“So soon [the retweet's] going to become a natively supported feature on twitter.com. It’s looking like we’re only weeks away from being ready to launch it on our end. We wanted to show the community of platform developers the API we’ve cooked up for retweeting so those who want to support it in their applications would have enough time to have it ready by launch day.”
4 API documentations:
1. Retweets in the new home timeline
2. Retweeted by me timeline
3. Retweeted to me timeline
4. My tweets, retweeted
We are really excited about what’s to come in the next few weeks! The new look, the way retweets are going to be organized and how users are going to respond to it. We would be bringing you updates when we learn more.
Meanwhile, this may come in handy: “6 Types of Tweets That Get Retweeted“
