Funny how everyone is all up in arms about Twitter’s most recent changes.
Small Settings Update
We’ve updated the Notices section of Settings to better reflect how folks are using Twitter regarding replies. Based on usage patterns and feedback, we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.
The Importance of Discovery
Spotting new folks in tweets is an interesting way to check out new profiles and find new people to follow. Despite this update, you’ll still see mentions or references linking to people you don’t follow. For example, you’ll continue to see, “Ev meeting with @biz about work stuff” even if you don’t follow @biz. We’ll be introducing better ways to discover and follow interesting accounts as we release more features in this space.
So I’m still trying to figure out what the big deal is. Part of my normal Twitter routine was to scan through my friend stream for original thoughts, ideas and links to which I could reply to. One thing I rarely did was jump in on conversations already happening unless I was following all parties because:
- I wasn’t seeing the whole conversation in my stream
- It would take too much effort to track down the entire conversation
So for me this new change is great. It’s easier to find other tweeps to converse with without sorting through all the seemingly one sided conversations.
Furthermore, for all the people complaining about losing their method of finding new tweeps to follow, there are PLENTY of ways to find new followers. Twitter even went so far as to say they would be implementing new methods of finding like minded tweeps in the near future.
We’ll be introducing better ways to discover and follow interesting accounts as we release more features in this space.
So once again, what’s the big deal?
4 replies on “Twitter's Reply Changes, Not A Big Deal”
The good thing about how it was before is that for people like you who feel like the one sided conversations cluttered your stream, you could choose that. But, for me and many others, that was the PRIMARY way we found new people to follow. If that’s the case (and #fixreplies) shows that, why would Twitter remove it? Why not let people choose, especially since the option was already there!
@bostonmarketer The fact they removed the option does suck and I can see how this change would affect people like you. If it were to make life easier on “Twitter noobs” one would think Twitter would just make that the default option and let everyone else choose.
At the same time, Twitter is only hiding @replies at the beginning of the tweets. Mentions and RTs will still show up like they always have. So I guess it’s not all bad.
I know the pros and cons will be different for everyone based on how they use Twitter. I guess my goal with this post was to put people’s mind at ease that are using Twitter the same way I do.
Funny thing is the original option was NOT on by default, you had to change the setting to see the third-party replies. While I don’t like the change, the bigger issue was the reasoning for it. Just seemed dishonest and insulting to the folks using the feature: “you’re not smart enough to figure out this confusing option, so we’ll help by removing it completely”.
Instead of what is probably the truth: “our systems and infrastructure can’t handle the traffic, so we had to remove the feature”. Even though the end result is the same feature wise, much more credibility with the user community.
[…] A few months ago, Twitter made some changes to their @reply system that prevented people from seeing conversations out of context. Everyone freaked out and Twitter clarified on their changes. I personally like the changes Twitter made. […]