Should you or Should You Not - Using Twitter's new ReTweet Functionality

During last night's session we went over Twitter and it's evolving technology. ReTweeting has been done manually in the past, which enabled you to add commentary as you saw fit. Twitter has now created a new feature to allow for "effortless" ReTweeting but should you always use this function?

Ray at Ray's 2.0 had this to say:

My advice to new Twitter users is that you should not use what Twitter calls a "retweet".

Just pass it on by.

The true retweet is something Twitter's customers invented, and which Twitter stupidly never formalized. The true "retweet" is the life blood of Twitter, and what has set it apart from other similar "microblogging" services.

Here's how to do a traditional retweet it if you're accessing Twitter on the internet:

1. Copy and paste the message and name of person sending it to you.

2. Precede it by "RT @" [i.e. you type "RT", then a space, then a @. It's important that the @ and the name NOT have a space between them].

How true retweets work in Twitter "clients" -- i.e. applications.

If you're using Tweetdeck, Seesmic, or any of the myriad "clients" and applications which support Twitter and other microblogging platforms, they almost all provide "retweet" buttons which simply automate the above 2 steps.

If the makers of these programs are smart -- and they certainly appear to be -- they will preserve the true retweet function, even as they are forced to add Twitter's bastardized version. Also they will quickly start adding on other sites, in addition to Twitter.

What's wrong with the thing Twitter mislabels a "retweet"

I don't have time to list all of the many things wrong with it; every day there are new, excellent articles coming out describing the stupidity of the product, and every day I learn of some new moronic aspect of it. My chief objections are: (1) you can't insert a comment; (2) you can't edit; (3) instead of showing your avatar, it shows the avatar of the original tweeter, which might be someone the recipient doesn't know or have any relationship with; (4) it prevents you from seeing multiple versions with different comments from different people; (5) if someone retweets you, you will never know that they did; (6) if you retweet someone, they will never learn that you did.

I.e., it takes the "social" out of "social media". It eliminates conversation and interaction, insists on blind rubber stamping, prevents you from letting your friend know you've honored them, and prevents you from knowing your friends have honored you. And it removes any clear indication of your identity to your own friends. Idiocy.

What about other microblogging sites?

Since Twitter has basically given up its competitive edge by ruining the retweet, I recommend exploring the many other microblogging services, such as identi.ca, friendfeed, etc. I personally am looking closely at identi.ca at the moment.

Right now we can do what I mentioned for the internet interfaces in those microblogging services as well. I.e. just copy and paste, precede by "RT @".

Most likely some of those services will be smart enough to recognize Twitter's huge misstep, and will quickly implement formal "retweets" of their own, retweets which will embody the attributes of the true retweet rather than Twitter's joke version. [Note: Twitter, like all companies which are poorly managed and then try to make up for their business mistakes by resort to litigation, will no doubt try to force their competitors to use terms other than "retweet", probably claiming some trademark although Twitter itself has never even used the term until now. So just be on the lookout for the other microblogging services to use some alternative terminology for it.]

Also the desktop applications makers will no doubt be supporting more of the other microblogging services as well, and will be adding retweet buttons for all of them.

Conclusion

This is my advice:

1. Don't use Twitter's so called retweet function.... ever. (Unless you want to disappear into a black hole, in which case it would be easier to just stop "microblogging" altogether).

2. Use genuine retweets only.

3. Explore other microblogging services, and do traditional retweeting in them. If those sites or applications develop traditional retweet capabilities, then use them.

4. Use the hashtag #saveretweets when tweeting about this subject, and let Twitter management know that they should have spoken to their customers before ruining something.... just so they'll have a better understanding of how things work in the business world when they report for their next jobs, after Twitter has gone out of business.

[Note: I've been advised that Tweets posted using the new RT function don't show up on Twitter lists or on Tweetdeck, and that you can't see people's retweets of your tweets. -R.B.]


How have you ReTweeted and do you see this as an improvement or poor execution. I personlly think it has pros and cons depending on what I am trying to share? I will doing a mix of using the new button and the manual process.