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What do you mean by RT on Twitter?

While talking to a few friends ( @b50, @netra, @suddentwilight ) whom I know through Twitter, I was introduced to this amusing new concept of adding "RT" to your original tweet. For example, replying to a friend and adding RT after it. It's an original tweet, not someone else's and it doesn't seem like it needs retweeting. It confused us all. So we talked for a while and realized what the whole deal was about. Here's a dissection of the conversation we had:

Part 1:

Alright, first, some history: Twitter was a plain jane message broadcasting platform, you said something, people opting to follow your updates saw what you wrote. Then people started having conversations, and began tagging each other by adding a @ sign and their name, like "@hiway hi there" to publicly talk to the user hiway instead of using the other method, a private way to send a message to a single recipient: direct message, or commonly known as DM. Twitter picked up this idea and implemented it as @replies or "mentions", so if a tweet contains your username with a preceeding @ sign, it will show up on your account.

Twitter users also realized that when someone that you follow says something profound, you feel like telling your followers about it. So we started using link shortners like tinyurl, bitly etc to add a reference link to the tweet we wanted to show our followers, but clicking on the link and opening browser/new tab just to see one tweet was cumbersome, especially for those using mobiles, so a cleverer method was found and accepted: adding "Via" / "ReTweeted" / "RT" along with the message and giving credit to the original author. So you don't leave the twitterpage/client. For example:

SomeUser: I think you will love this tweet

ImpressedUser: RT: @SomeUser: I think you will love this tweet

SomeUser: I think you will love this tweet

ImpressedUser: I did! I did! RT: @SomeUser: I think you will love this tweet
(Adding your own comment _before_ the RT)

or as

SomeUser: I found an interesting link! http://interesti.ng/link

ImpressedUser: This is curious: http://interesti.ng/link Via @SomeUser

This is what RT means to all of us old timers… Re-Tweet. When you take someone's tweet and post it on your timeline with due credit.
Via is usually used when you rephrase the original tweet, but still wish to give credit to source (yes, you can steal from others, but giving credit is the right way)

Part 2:

What Twitter did next was implement an "in reply to" feature for replies. As we started following more and more people, and started tweeting a lot, the asynchronous and non-threaded nature of twitter started showing its flaws: in short, you could easily lose context of a conversation. What in-reply-to did was the same thing we were doing with RTs and for this purpose with replies… add a shortened link to the tweet that is being replied to.

SomeUser: This tweet is totally awesome!

ImpressedUser: @SomeUser: That's soo true! [ http://sho.rt/link ]

The short link would take you back to the first tweet so the context of conversation was maintained. Twitter picked up this hint too and incorporated in-reply-to. So now we didn't have to copy the shortened link every time we were replying to someone to maintain context - Twitter put that in the tweet automatically and showed a link along with the tweet.

Part 3:

As time went by, people realized that they could reach a larger audience if their followers ReTweeted their tweets, some people started soliciting RTs by adding "Please RT" or just a plain "RT" at the end of their tweets.

Part 3.1:

And @AshuMittal just gave me a heads-up on another way that people use RT - for a one-on-one conversation, while ReTweeting other person's tweets and adding your replies in front of it.

SomeUser: I'm awesome!

ImpressedUser: Yes you are! RT: @SomeUser: I'm awesome!

SomeUser: I know! RT: ImpressedUser: Yes you are! RT: @SomeUser: I'm awesome!

ImpressedUser: OMGOMG! RT: SomeUser: I know! RT: ImpressedUser: Yes you are! RT: @SomeUser: I'm awesome!

Using RT here has two purposes… first to maintain context of the conversation (as long as you talk mostly in monosyllables ;-) and second to broadcast a conversation between two people to everyone following you.

Part 4:

Now, somewhere in between, someone confused the in-reply-to with RT because RT sounds like shortened form of reply-to. Or someone mistook using inline RTs with replies to maintain context and they started writing RT after their tweets, expecting that by doing so, Twitter would add the in-reply-to link to maintain context. This is where I'd use the Hindi phrase: गई भैंस पानी में! // Gayee bhains paani mein. This is where RT went downhill.

This is what this post is all about!

So I request those of you who are using RT "to maintain context", you need to do nothing, except click on the reply button next to the tweet you are replying to! That's all. Use RT when you are Re-Tweeting someone else's (or your) tweet.

Conclusion:

I've not noticed as many people confusing RT and in-reply-to , but apparently there are a few who arrived late on the scene and have no clue of what's going on. You could direct those misusing RTs to this page for some explanation or explain it yourself if feeling generous ;-)

NOTE: Some text has been added since I first published it: Part 3.1 and second example in Part 1.

// Who am I to talk about this? Just someone who has been curiously observing Twitter (especially, in Indian context) since a while ;-)

Tagged gyan rant socialmedia twitter

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What is Twitter, for me?

Twitter, a minimalistic communication platform that doubles up as a social networking site because of a unique way of forming self-curated, personal groups. That's how I'd describe this rather interesting phenomenon that has taken the world by surprise — when everyone else seemed to make social networking sites heavier, Twitter came in with a multitude of limitations. Message length 140 characters, no way to tag someone, no option to upload photos, videos, no special method to attach links. It stopped working every now and then, shoved a flying whale in your face when all you wanted to say was "Good morning world!".

But it grew. People using the site came up with ways to tag people, by adding an @ sign before the username… the company incorporated this into their code [1], [2]. The "failwhale" as it was named, again by users, nearly disappeared. Profile search came in, so people could find new and interesting people to follow. [3]

All this progress was all technical stuff, it interested mostly the geeks. However, in my experience, as time went on, I wanted more of my closest friends to be a part of this so I invited them over. It seems, around that time everyone else was doing the same. Soon enough, we had a bunch of people we knew and some we had never met talking about random stuff. Everything from "I'm having a cup of chai." to "I'm getting married!"

However, the scene among Twitter users in India was like that of a desert… mirages in form of rarely used accounts and hopes that there are others out there. We found a few people to follow and formed a very tightly knit community. People from all over India identified as one unit. But there were very few of us. Until a fellow by the name @s4ur4bh came along (note: He has changed username to @saurabh now, and another person uses the original handle) and started a Google Talk chat-bot that drew interest from many people and introduced us to each other. The ball really started rolling after the "IndiaTwits" experiment. A name which I opposed for using "i" instead of "ee", but an idea I was eager to accept.

The project ran its course, but the people who had joined Twitter by now had gathered enough momentum to continue tweeting. Of course, some disappeared, new people joined in. But most stayed put. These were the nostalgic golden days from my perspective. I met some people when visiting their cities, all thanks to Twitter. Got a new job, thanks to Twitter. Made some lasting friends, and shared my happiness and sorrows, got pat on the back or a kick when deserved. Twitter started getting more and more personal. From just noting what I was doing, it became a place to record what I was feeling along with other details of life. For me, Twitter had always been a open, personal diary. But with many people interacting, it also became a diary of my discussions, opinions, interests and whatnot!

Those who have followed me and observed might have noticed that I've changed over the years. I rant (slightly) less these days, am a tad bit more sarcastic than before, find more things funny and am not afraid to say it when I'm not sure about something. At least I got the chance to observe these changes in me with hard evidence! Though I haven't recorded *everything* here, especially about details like having feelings for someone, or the once in a while disagreements with friends or family, but I have recorded the most happy and most shocking days of my life since I've been using Twitter. I'll write about those someday later, in detail… those events deserve a detailed thought.

So this is what Twitter means to me… a diary, a lounge to chat with friends, a marketplace where I can buy and sell, a town hall where I can debate with or listen to smart and knowledgeable people, a place where I can ask for reviews of places or things. Twitter also helps me form a personal support group… people who care for me get constant updates about what I'm doing, and once in a while, when I'm feeling down, I tweet about it and get replies to console, cheer up or phone calls to talk or invitations to meet up and vent it out in person. To think I didn't even know these people a few years or even months ago… ! Other times, I return the favor. Yes, Twitter is very personal for me, it has helped me cope through some turbulent times. The people, half of whom I haven't even met do matter to me.

I'm not living a second life, am not pretentious or "virtual" on Twitter; it is a wholehearted extension of who I am.

That's Twitter for me. How about you?

Ref:
[1] http://blog.twitter.com/2007/05/are-you-twittering-me.html
[2] http://blog.twitter.com/2007/12/new-replies-settings.html
[3] http://blog.twitter.com/2007/08/searching-twitter.html

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