Give Retweets a Chance
Evan Williams – CEO of Twitter – tells us why:
http://evhead.com/2009/11/why-retweet-works-way-it-does.html
In my mind, these are the most important points:
-
Previously, if one of your followers didn't like the things that you retweeted, they'd have no choice but to unfollow you completely. With the new built-in retweets, Twitter has exposed a way for users to choose who's retweets they see. So now, say you like what somebody else has to say but don't like what they retweet, you can turn off their retweets and continue to follow them.
-
Redundancy. With the new retweet system, if the same tweet is retweeted by 50 of the people you follow, you won't have to scroll past it 50 times. This cuts down on "retweet spam" greatly.
-
Historically, the "RT" syntax has been a mechanism to "inject" what somebody else said into your own stream to share with your own followers. Twitter etiquette dictated that if you wanted to retweet and comment on the tweet, you use the less popular "via" syntax. Chris Messina recently proposed a new microsyntax standard, which Tweetie 2.1 adopts: http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/11/08/new-microsyntax-for-twitter-t... . This is the man who invented the hashtag. If there's anyone in the world who has the right to dictate Twitter etiquette, it's him.
Using the new "native" retweet system gives your followers more control over their own stream. It's the courteous thing to do. And if you wish to add a comment to your retweet, Tweetie 2.1 lets you do that too, with the "Quote Tweet" button (you'll find it right below the "Retweet" button).