Comments on: Twitter “RT” tag use could be curtailed

By: Lane

Lane — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:54:49 +0000

Every RT I’ve received was a personal reply to someone that was of no interest, or even understandable, to anyone else. Before I googled “RT Twitter,” I had decided that it meant “Reply To” and was a device to force the world to receive your nonsense… nonsense to everyone except the person replied to.

By: Barb Chamberlain

Barb Chamberlain — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 06:09:58 +0000

A few thoughts–

Some of the external apps use your RT rate as part of their measurement of your influence. I don’t know whether their calculations are particularly useful to very many, but in a way it reminds of me of the use of citations in academia, as a measure of the value of your work to others.

I agree with those who value the RT as a way of finding interesting people to follow–I use them that way as well.

I like it when I can see the actual form of expression someone uses. I don’t plagiarize the wit of others, & I don’t want someone passing my words off as theirs if I’ve made a semi-original observation. Just sharing a link, I don’t care.

If I’ve found a link worth following I’ll write my own comment on it & include a “thx to @so-and-so” for pointing it out. Not just an echo, but an amplification with variation, so it’s more of a conversation. (and yes, this takes more character spaces, but then that’s always the challenge w/tweets!)

@BarbChamberlain

By: Ryan Jerz

Ryan Jerz — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:29:16 +0000

Twitter doesn’t have a lot of complexity. Retweeting is simply a way to repost a tweet, like when I bookmark something on Delicious or use trackback. Who wouldn’t want something they said to be spread amongst a greater network?

By: Dougie

Dougie — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:24:14 +0000

I find the RTs useful as they give me the chance to check someone’s profile, check their blog link (if they have one) and consider whether they are someone who might be worth following. They may be a bad thing if the tweet only has a series of RT @names and no other content - that is 100% pointless.

BTW, your blog is unreadable on my laptop with the current colour scheme, I had to use FF “NO PAGE STYLE” to read it.

By: Hadass

Hadass — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:32:50 +0000

Am I the only one to see both sides? Yes, the RTs can become redundant. OTOH, attribution is important, and I also agree that useful things can be learned by seeing where the tweet came from originally.

So, I’m ambivalent. I think they don’t bother me enough, yet. How about, when retweeting, you clean it up and just leave the original?

By: George Frink

George Frink — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:28:35 +0000

RT 4. … by Jeremy

By: The Harriman Team

The Harriman Team — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:23:45 +0000

I also agree with the others. It not only let’s you give credit to a source, but by retweeting you can maximize dissemination of quality content. The original tweeter may be following a completely different group of people than I am; by retweeting I am offering his good content to a group of followers he would not have access to, other than thru the public time line. I also like to retweet messages regarding worthy causes, such as charitable donations like Mail Our Military, or even amber alerts and word of the passing of someone of note. Strangely enough, I hardly ever retweet my own stuff.