Well, hello: Welcome back under the tree! It's been a long, long time, hasn't it? Take a seat, have a cookie, some milk (if you like) - and enjoy! (Or just do whatever you do while reading blog postings. - Wait a minute. Sounds like "copy'n'paste". Nah, never mind.)
While I've been quite lazy, at least as for writing blog postings, folks at Twitter came up with some interesting new features. Giving that a second thought I should call them just "interesting" as they were not exactly new to the community. But let's take small steps, one after the other.
The features I'm talking about are "retweeting" and "lists". And looking back they are not exactly new to Twitter users, yet they are new in the way they are implemented. We all know that people find their way to work around limitations they are confronted with. What is interesting about it is that they manage to find some common ground and make this workaround work for many or even most of us.
One of those workarounds on Twitter is about what is called "retweeting". The original challenge was to publish a received update again (for what reason ever) in a way that it could be recognized in the timeline as re-published, as re-tweeted. To learn more about retweeting please visit the Twitter Fan Wiki or Mashable - to mention two possible resources.
You may find out that retweeting isn't just a workaround any longer but it has become a special part of the Twitter culture. As with being cited, being retweeted shows that the update must have been of some value for someone - and that someone has read the update! Don't laugh, think about it: imagine the amount of updates per second published on Twitter. And suddenly there is an update that is published once more. Maybe again and again. See? It is about influence too...
But my intention is not to explain the psychological aspects or those of group dynamics. Far from it. My point is that the community using Twitter has been using a way to deal with the challenge of republishing updates for months, for years. And it is still working.
Some weeks ago the folks at Twitter introduced their approach to that challenge. As they have the means and the tools at their hand, their interpretation of how to retweet is slightly different from the workarounds that have been in use for a long time. Using the web interface provided by Twitter, there is a button to be found next to each and every update offering the retweet option.
To learn more about it, please have a look at "Project Retweet: Phase One" by @biz on the Twitter Blog or a posting on that subject found on Mashable - or use the search engine of your choice to find out more about it.
As far as I am concerned, I don't see the point in the "official" retweet option provided by Twitter. Sure, it is nice, handy and, well, it is different. Yet to me, as I'm using Twitter for nine months now, the "traditional" way to retweet is somewhat more honest and maybe even more worth reading it.
Honest? Worth reading? Why? Because - assuming that the original update didn't make use of all the 140 characters - it leaves you some space to add your own comment. You can tell others what made you republish that tweet. You can add a comment on the original statement. You can add - value. In a way. The solution provided by Twitter lacks this options. Sad fact. But sure, they offer an option.
In the end it's up to you and me which way we prefer to retweet. All I can say is that there sure will be stuff worth retweeting. Well, at least I think so when taking a look at the list of people I am following... What brings me to the other new, errr, interesting feature: lists.
Lists. Lists? Indeed. Yet another way to manage the ones you are following? Yes. Again, let's take small steps, one after the other. Good places to start from may be the Twitter Fan Wiki (to get the idea of some traditional, workaround approach), "Soon to Launch: Lists" by @nk on the Twitter blog, or Mashable.
Since I joined Twitter I came across lots of sites offering some kind of help in building groups made up of people using Twitter. There were and there are different reasons why trying to do so. One sure is to help people to get in touch with others that are sharing similar interests - whatever that might be. Even though I only use sites and services like that in a passive way (registering, signing in and leaving again), I can see: it might be useful. Another reason, especially for creating groups offline (within the Twitter client of your choice), is laziness and pretending.
Confused? Why would it be lazy to use groups? Why would I call someone using groups a pretender? Well, it is about numbers. Again. This time it is about the number of people one can follow on Twitter - and still read what they are writing. Think about it: do you read all of the tweets published by the people you are following? (Sure, if you are not using Twitter, never mind.)
Building groups or lists may help those who are following lots of people to keep in touch with and read the updates of those people they are really interested in. And the rest? Well, the rest, they may feel better as the one they are following did follow back. Or something like that. I leave that to your imagination. The point is that in case one is following hundreds or thousands of people one needs to organize and prioritize. In that case groups have been the tool of choice ever since.
Now Twitter offers its own group-building tool. They call it lists. And it is a clever approach: you can have public and private ones! Private lists instantly make sense as they are very much like the group tools other Twitter clients offer. As they offer similar functionality they are ideal for those who like to follow more people but want to read less tweets at the same time. But it is only one possible use.
Others are very similar to those offered by online services: building groups of people (one is following) because of a subject, an interest, of interesting content - and show this collections to others. That way everyone interested can easily find new feeds with possibly interesting updates. From that point of view lists can be some kind of extension to the use of hashtags. In the end it is up to everyone on Twitter interested in the lists feature to find out for themselves what lists can be used for.
As far as I am concerned, especially private lists have the aftertaste of some kind of betrayal. I would feel like a pretender if I would use a private list to read only updates of some of the people I am following. Sure, I played around and have set up some lists. But in the end, to me only reading the classic feed summary feels right. That is why I will stay with my principles: only follow people with (kind of) interesting updates and only as many as can seriously be read.
So, what are the lists about you are going to build? Well, go out there and have fun finding out! (You may find some hints and some help reading another article on Mashable.)
Me? I will lean back and sit here, whisteling my own tunes from time to time - and listen to the birds tweeting. Sitting under the tree.
CU - GU!
