“Retweet is stupid” - Think again fellow social media citizens
I was going about my daily routine of going through my various social media websites and was voting and commenting on Mixx.com. I saw an article in the upcoming section of Mixx that was on the verge of going popular, so I contributed my vote and sent it to the frontpage. Inside of this submission I was shocked to find some names I really respect supporting and agreeing with the content of a blog post written by Dave Winer.
If you don’t know who Dave Winer is, you should. For a detailed explanation of who he is you can check out this Wikipedia entry or just hop on over to his blog homepage to get his bio. Two big accolades of Mr. Winer’s are pioneering the development of weblogs and syndication (RSS). With that said, you can also jump on over and read Mr. Winer’s blog post on why he feels the, “Retweet is stupid.”
Quoting Mr. Winer from the meat of his post he says:
A retweet is the same as voting up something on Digg or Reddit. It’s a piece of metadata about the tweet, and should be stored and displayed with the tweet. When you retweet something, none of the 140 characters should be used in saying that it’s a retweet and who it came from.
Now it’s very possible that Mr. Winer was not devaluing the power of the resyndication of information but was just saying that retweet information is wasting space in the confined 140 characters provided in Twitter. That is pretty much what the above quote says. However, there are some problems with what is said above and the comments this post spawned revealed that many people embraced the idea and feels that the retweet is pointless, spam and is inferior to social votes from sites like Mixx.com, Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com and many more.
From this Mixx comment thread there were these two comments that started my feeling for the need of a retort:
FROM MIXX ID: justiuli
Retweeting is pointless. It’s completely ridiculous. You only have to fill up 140 characters, and you don’t have the creativity to even come up with that. So, you fire up TweetDeck and hit the retweet button all day long. Uncreative and utterly pointless for anyone who’s not a pointless social media retard.If I see a Twitter profile and it’s got nothing but retweets, I hit the magic “block” button. These people are pointless leeches, and usually have nothing of any interest to say: it’s all “OMG social media is so transgressive! I love Web 2.0 so much!” etc. Pointless crap.
FROM MIXX ID: cmcgill (Mixx Founder)
hate the retweet- but I suppose it is a way to “pass it on”
Now before I start to discuss my objections let me state that I have the utmost respect and admiration for Chris McGill, the founder of Mixx. He created a social news site that I have loved from day one and always look to for innovation in that niche of the social web. In regards to Dave Winer, who can’t admire him? He’s like a co-father of the Internet’s Web 2.0. Okay, credit given so here’s my take!
My comment on Mixx was this:
I’m disappointed in the views of my fellow Mixxers in their feeling that the “Retweet” is stupid. What it tells me is that most don’t understand it’s implication or point. While it certainly is the same as a Mixx Upvote, a Digg or a Stumble it’s so much more. The reason I think most of you think it’s stupid or pointless is because you are categorizing and compartmentalizing it in the same category as the voting system.
While a retweet is a vote, it’s also the syndication of information within seconds. If someone has a lot of followers on Twitter, they are respected to have a keen eye for good content, breaking information or a tight niche categorical focus on content. Instead of simply just voting, that content is then displayed to hundreds or thousands of eyes, minds and feeds within seconds.
So if you want my true opinion, I think a vote is more pointless or stupid than a retweet. It’s effect is much less substantial. It’s power limited. It’s butterfly effect small. Wake up and smell the revolution.
With all of that said, I absolutely love Mixx, which is why you see me here, voting away and commenting.
Mixx on buddies!
P.S. This comment thread and Mixx submission just may spawn a blog post from me. I think people need to be educated as to the real point of a retweet and what it really means instead of the explanation of “Firing up Tweetdeck and mindlessly spamming links along.” Keep your eyes open for my post and vote accordingly.
Update: I had pretty much finished this blog post and noticed a response from Chris McGill on Mixx where he makes an excellent point. I will put his quote below and see if I can address it.
Is a retweet just a vote like a Digg, Upvote or a Stumble?
Part of the answer is a definite yes. A retweet is simply a vote for an idea, piece of content, picture or blog post. These votes are aggregated by a growing number of sites like Tweetmeme.com, Popurls.com and Twitturls.com. So the representation of top content rising in a voting system is built out by these 3rd party websites and replicates most of the features of sites like Digg and Mixx.
With that said, besides just the voting system each retweet lends more power, syndication and traffic than a simple vote on a social news site. When you vote on a site like Digg and Mixx you have the potential to lend more traffic and exposure to that site if your vote helps it rise to top pages or the frontpage. If your vote doesn’t have that effect it was simply a nod of agreement and that’s about it. With Twitter, a retweet instantly offers hundreds if not thousands of people the chance to see the content as soon as it is retweeted. The power is multiplied by much more and then you have the chance of a retweet of a retweet which then build the viral syndication model even larger.
Is a retweet just mindless spamming of links?
This idea really gets me. I don’t see any relation to spam or mindless activity or laziness with this. Essentially when you retweet you are placing your authority, brand and credibility behind someones tweet, blog post, image or idea. The credibility factor is HUGE. There are many times when I will take a double-take and a closer look at an article because of WHO retweeted it. So the idea that it’s a waste to see “who” retweeted is way off too.
Niche / Trust / Categorization
Beyond just the idea of credibility, trust and authority there is the focus of niche content. There are many Twitter users that stay extremely true to the type of content they retweet. A good example of this is @mayhemstudios as about 80% of his tweeting and retweeting is focused on web design and graphic design. This compartmentalization of information is powerful in many ways and is slowly replacing or competing with RSS feeds. I have already heard from at least a hundred people that they have quit using RSS feeds and just use Twitter to aggregate their niche information they’re looking for by scanning their groups in Tweetdeck or their 3rd party client of choice.
Waste of 140 characters?
Where I will say that I do agree is that possibly the RT @username and the sometimes long list of this information can take away from the sparse amount of characters we already have to use in Twitter. It could be effective to have this information of who retweeted in a different way so that the 140 characters can be utilized for extra information such as a short opinion and hashtags.
Chris McGill’s reply to my comment on Mixx - he makes a great point!
@webaddict First of all- this is a great response and I completely appreciate where you are coming from. The downside for me is that it just fills my twitter stream with the same thing over and over again. A vote on the other hand just simply readjusts what I should be lookin at.
Clearly I am biased… and I am not a twitter power user. I’ll look for your blog post and seriously appreciate the perspective.
Twitter Stream same thing over and over?
In Mr. McGill’s reply comment he really does touch on a great point. There IS a problem with retweets when on Twitter. If something is hot or for some reason everyone decides to retweet it a lot one can find their Twitter Stream littered with the same tweet over and over as it’s retweeted by other users. The only solution I see to this is using a 3rd party client like Seesmic Desktop or TweetDeck. With these 3rd party apps you can setup Groups and filter in specific users you are monitoring. In my own groups I try to not add people that simply retweet people every time they tweet. I do find that if I see an article retweeted multiple times and I haven’t read it yet that I might be missing something and I better take a peak. With that said, the voting mechanism of social news sites certainly does solve this problem. Thanks for the reply Chris.
I hope this helps some who don’t see the value of the retweet as to why some people find it simply amazing. While I can vote for things, like them or comment on them in other social media spaces, I cannot present it to thousands of people and help drive traffic to amazing ideas and information like I can with retweeting on Twitter.
Please let me know what you agree and disagree with on this post. What do you like and dislike about retweets? Do you think they’re worthless too? Do you find yourself reading things because a certain person retweeted them?
Peace, Love and Chicken Grease,
- webaddict
Hey Brother!
Once again you’re dead on here. A RT is not stupid at all. Actually if you look at the reach it has then people would begin to understand it’s power. Chris McGill is a good friend of mine. We had him on Social Blend this week to announce the launch of a new Mixx Feature. The reason I bring this point up is I Tweeted the link out:
http://twitter.com/SilentJay74/statuses/1638712194
Now if it gets some RT’s then people who follow me have other followers that do not follow me. So it reaches those people. Also it reaches the followers, followers, followers, if they feel the need to RT the content. So it is a dominoe effect. The reach of an RT is awesome, the content reaches more eyes instantly.
L8r brother! Great post!
I agree with RT’s especially if it is good content from a trusted user.
Take it easy bro, or anyway you can get it
I completely agree. RT’s are awesome. They provide you with a way to get your thoughts out to hndreds or thousands even if you are a new user or just don’t have a huge following yet. It’s also a way to know whether your followers appreciate your tweets. Maybe you need to adjust your style if you are not getting RTs.
[...] about Butterflies as of April 28, 2009 “Retweet is stupid” - Think again fellow social media citizens - openpresswire.com 04/28/2009 I was going about my daily routine of going through my various [...]
I have no use for Digg or Stumpleupon or the rest of those. I don’t want to know what the masses like. I want to know what the people I follow like—I wouldn’t be following them if I didn’t think their perspective was one I’m interested in. The RT is nothing more than a tweet that tells me what a respected individual is reading/enjoying.
Some people get it and some people don’t
Glad you do.
As a fellow retweetist there is nothing lazy about how I mine for content and sift through the garbage and push forth the goodness. Not to mention that I’m not dependent on some of the ridiculously titled submissions.
The sweet retweet is an art form. I’m not saying clicking a button to retweet it, any monkey can do it, what I’m refering to is the foresight that goes into producing the content that will be retweeted.
The bubble that diggers, mixxers and the like exist within should be popped! Take off that small 35mm lens and replaced it with a wide angled lens. See the world from outside the bubble.
I wish there was term similar to Luddite that I could describe some of these people with. Any suggestions?
Retweet my ass…
I think OrangeXW summed my opinion up very nicely - “I want to know what the people I follow like…” I tend to follow a lot of people who post interesting links, most of which I would not have seen if they were not RT’ed. In fact, I check my twitter homepage for the newest articles more than I check digg or SU or the like.
Excellent points and observations! I personally find IMMENSE value in the RT and utilize it often. It has not replaced my RSS reader, but the two blend together to give me a well-rounded wealth of information. Through Twitter I have been able to build a network with other designers, and through the RT we are able to share links to articles that make us better at what we do.
While I understand the value of Digg and other sites, I have never joined in on the phenomenon. I plan to check it out one day, but today is not that day. Honestly, between my RSS feeds and Twitter RTs I’m not sure I’d have time for something like Digg.
As for reading articles and links simply because of who tweeted it, I definitely find myself doing this! I find myself scanning through my tweetstream for specific designers I respect immensely. Many of these designers are very familiar with the RT, and I never hesitate to follow their links or even RT it if I concur with their assessment of the article.
Simply put, I couldn’t agree with you more.
[...] “Retweet is stupid” - Think again fellow social media citizens • openpresswire.com Is retweeting dumb? [...]
Brilliant post Joel! I was wondering about this too. I am all for RTs and I believe they can be made so much simpler if Tweets carried meta-data on if they RTs.
How can this be implemented? Instead of clicking the arrow for ‘reply’, we can click on a new symbol for RT. This can contain meta-data on who’s tweet was originally Tweeted… gosh, this is going to spawn a blog post
The Retweet is the core of what makes Twitter so viral and interesting. I think developers need to embrace this concept pronto. Great Post!
Excellent post. I think I’ll tweet about it and then maybe some of my 5k plus followers will retweet it.
One of the main reasons why I stay on twitter is for the retweet information/resource links.
I don’t chat too much on twitter, but getting info passed down through retweets is what keeps me around all day.
ironicly…i found this article through a RT….and i’ve never even heard of this blog….
but it’s a great article nonetheless….
and RT is a great feature…but i also agree with one of the comments by Mr Winer…it shouldn’t take up some of ur 140 chars….
To the point.
RT is a very powerful way of taking a content or tweet from one network to the other network. Its like sharing things with your family about things that happened with your friends. Its a very natural instainct of human beings.
RT makes each tweet alive and stay longer on the network.
Remember, how we all get to hear a joke that has been told years back when you were a child. Ya that is the power of tales and stories being told over and over again. Something interesting and important has the right to stay for longer time and RT does that in twitter.
So cheers for RT.
I’ll admit, the title of this post had me wondering what I was in for. I was pleasantly pleased to read both sides of an argument, and why you stand where you do.
Personally, I’ve shifted on the RT. I initially thought very similarly to those who say that it’s a cop-out for not coming up with anything new to share.
That said, my perspective has shifted through months of using Twitter. If something is thought to be a valuable tidbit of information, why NOT pass it on? To horde it would be to go against the grain of social media. No, you didn’t come up with it, but you are capable of reading it and recognizing it as something that resonated with you.
I agree. The RT is a step up from the voting system of websites.
Retweets suck. The links describe it better than I can.
http://www.retweetrank.com/murnahan
http://www.retweetist.com/users/murnahan
http://www.awebguy.com/2009/02/twitter-the-tweet-about-retweet/
With all due respect, I must disagree.
RT’ing someone’s tweet is a way of saying “hey, I liked what you said, and so I’d like to pass it on to other tweeple who might find it interesting.” Especially in a political context - when you want to share something with like-minded politicians, retweeting is a quick and efficient way to do that.
Now, of course some people such as yourself automatically “block” the person, but that’s everyone’s right.. I block people all the time. I find that sharing re-tweets is helpful, though.
Just my $0.02.
Sorry, I should clarify - I disagree with justiuli’s comment. Retweeting is a good thing. Great post, webaddict.. I agree.
One thing that people need to keep in mind is that an RT will allow information to get to people who don’t follow the originator.
It also makes the information available at different times since most people aren’t on Twitter 24/7. It helps valuable information to stand out in the crowd.
I agree that it would be nice to have a better way to credit the originator of the info, or at least allow the RT @originator to be in addition to the 140 characters.
I agree with you about retweets.
Retweets is a powerful thing on Twitter. Also depends who is tweeting/retweeting it. I never knew how powerful it was until, I crashed a few sites with my retweets, the amount of traffic it was getting.
I like retweeting useful info and help promote those blogs, or otherwise they may not be seen. I also tend to check out links more for people I know that tweet great links.
Also thanks for the mention.
- Cal
RTs are stupid - if you believe that ALL the information you will ever need to see will be sent by exactly the people you are currently following!
People that do a fair amount of RT are generous, from my POV.
Even if they never have a single word or link of their one, they are adding to the conversation and the spread of information & conversation.
Some days RT is all I can do. Is it adding nothing? I don’t think so. People will vote by unfollowing, I suppose, but then I am not one of those people who think “she with the most followers wins”.
Thanks @webaddict for finally writing this piece. Makes me feel a little better.
I am a reticent blogger and an even more reticent feed reader, I am told the two feed off each other anyway! Loved it when the twitter widget came along and quickly pasted it onto my blog saying - ‘pardonmeiamamicroblogger’.
I have the same thing to say about Retweets. Bloggers feed off feeds, Tweeps nibble on tweets! What’s the big deal. Multiple blogs link each other with great gusto. What’s all this talk about ‘only original’ posts. What is wrong in liking someone else’s post, enough to lend it your name.
To me RT is a way of acknowledgment (a copyright thing, if you will) and Twitter has almost replaced RSS for feeds. Everyone else keeps linking from their google reader anyway
The retweet, to me, is one of the things that makes twitter so real-time. An earthquake in Hawaii a few weeks ago… @AlohaArleen tweets it, I RT and it gets retweeted x number of times - instant information to thousands of people w/o having to recap… just RT the darned thing. Same for things like amber alerts or what have you. It really can be useful in addition to just regular old good topics/posts/articles you run across on the web. I get a ton of good info (including a link to this post) from RTs.
Thanks, good post!
~ Jim
~ tweet: @seo_web_design
[...] This post was Twitted by featureBlend - Real-url.org [...]
Thanks for the help on the article. It really helped.
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Nice post webaddict.
Being a newbie to both blogging and twitter I rely upon the wisdom of ones such as yourself.
The RT certainly can get a bit tedious if a tweeter does nothing but retweet and some RT’s of RT’s also becomes a little.
Perhaps you can provide some more information on the etiquette regarding an RT of an RT?
i.e do you just RT the original person or as I have seen in some instances people RT the person RT’ing.
I hope that makes sense.
tpr2
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