Unless I'm missing something here, this is the single worst (and only)
degradation of service Twitter has ever put in place. A big step backwards
for three reasons - 1) It completely ignores the concept of relationship
building, 2) it promotes elitist arrogance on Twitter, and 3) it will
increase meaningless RTs exponentially - What am I missing here on what's
good about this?
Ignoring Relationship Building
People gravitate toward people they enjoy communicating with - that's how we
build friends in any context. One of the main ways I find people I want to
meet is that they like what I say, and more often than not, an RT tells me
they like what I say, and I do the same for them. To keep me from being
able to see people who like what I say removes one of the best ways of
building relationships Twitter has. I NEED to see an RT from people who
aren't following me to help me build my business.
Elitist Arrrogance
Being annoyed by people retweeting you is like an author being annoyed that
people showed up at their book signing - how elitist to turn up your nose at
people who like what you say. Gee, sorry about that. This mindset doesn't
want to build relationships but just wants to be able to count how many
faceless, nameless people RT them - how arrogant is that?
Increased Meaningless RT Traffic
Before this feature, you actually had to do a little work to RT - copy,
paste, put RT in front of it and send. Ouch - that's a lot of work. But
that tiny bit of work kept people from senselessly RT'ing just to gain
followers - it was too cumbersome to use effectively for spamming. Now by
the simple push of a button people will be RT'ing like changing TV channels
w/ a remote, and you won't really know if it meant enough to them to put a
little effort into building that relationship with you - just stop holding
your finger up and let it fall - that really shows a how much that comment
meant to you?
Summary
Twitter started out as a tool to build relationships. It has become less
and less personal. This new RT'ing feature reduces your ability to build
relationships, plays to the arrogant elite, and makes it easier for people
to use RT'ing and 10 different ghost accounts to spam people to death. And
this is an upgrade? Hmmm not seeing it. Facebook is starting to look
good all of a sudden.
CAN'T YOU MAKE IT A CHOICE TO SEE RTs FROM NON-FOLLOWERS? WHY SHOULD I
SUFFER BECAUSE THE TWITTER ELITE ARE TIRED OF THEIR FOLLOWERS?
