What Do You Think Of Twitter’s Popularity Drama?
Sep 21 2009 
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I just want to play devils advocate for a minute here. You don’t mind do you?
Word is spreading fast that Twitter will soon implement retweets into the web interface and API. That’s right, Retweets are no longer just a geek thing. Retweets are no longer just an early adopter thing. Retweeting will officially be mainstream, something we already knew. But now, Twitter will add it to your list of tabs, making it official.
What Would Twitter Do?
On one hand, I wonder what this will mean for services like Tweetmeme, a retweet aggregator? Is this a sign that Twitter is planning to buy such services? Or will they start one of their own? There are a lot of paths Twitter can take, which we can speculate on another day.
Today, I want to know if you think officially adding retweets into the UI could hype the popularity problems that are spreading throughout Twitter.
High School Behavior Infiltrates Twitter
So what is the Twitter popularity problem? Too many people are choosing quantity over quality when it comes to followers. As high school as it is, it’s not going to change. You can’t deny that the higher the follower count, the more likely others are to follow back. In the case of Twitter’s Retweet API, the higher the numbers, the higher your chances are of being retweeted. And the higher your chances are of getting more traffic. And the higher your chances are for more money making opportunities.
Do you see where this is going?
I’d hate to start seeing links being spread for popularity sake instead of for quality and usefulness. It’s already getting out of hand in many ways. Though, one benefit that I am looking forward to seeing from the implementation of the ReTweet API is credit to the original author. As I stated before: Retweeting is the new linkback.
But What Do You Think?
- What are the benefits of seeing who has retweeted content that you’re about to retweet?
- If you didn’t know who retweeted it, would you still retweet it?
- What effects will knowing have on your retweeting behavior?
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“Too many people are choosing quantity over quality when it comes to followers.”
I know an anchor who is like that. I swear she tries to collect Twitter followers. On the other hand, I've been being very selective with who I follow these days. I'd rather have a small group of quality people than a large group that produces a ton of noise.
-Adam
Hmmm… I'm not very worried about quantity over quality. My reason why is that the quantity just dies over time if there is no quality. At least that's what I believe. Myself I'm currently on so many social media sites sharing so much it's rather crazy. But there is method to this madness (at least I hope – mad people think they're normal right? Crap! How do you ever know!?!)
From my own perspective I'm giving all these technologies and ways of communicating a fair chance. If all this following everyone is new, I'd like to follow many to figure out over time what works for me. Old things a person knows to do what they've always done. New things require experimentation… and sometimes quite a bit of following and listening to figure it all out.
Definitely some food for thought. I like how you put it, retweeting is the new linkback. The greatest feature of this would probably be that it credits the original author of the tweet. It would be a good way to keep track of the retweets as well.
Definitely some food for thought. I like how you put it, retweeting is the new linkback. The greatest feature of this would probably be that it credits the original author of the tweet. It would be a good way to keep track of the retweets as well.