Twitter News

Hi all!

On Twitter this week, the Twitter 'bosses' have been doing some updates to the servers and site itself. One of the most talked about updates in all of Twitter has been the fact that Twitter has removed the setting to filter the replies you see on your Timeline. Replies are any Tweets that include your Twitter user name preceded by a @ sign. For example, if I was to send a Tweet to Evan Williams (Twitter CEO) asking him what he was doing I'd say:

"@ev What are you doing?"

Before Twitter was updated, there was a setting in "Notices" that allowed you to filter the types of replies you see in your timeline. This particular setting was a drop-down menu, the choices were as follows:

~ Show replies from anyone you're following

~ Only show replies if you're following both the sender and the person being replied to

~ Show none

If one was to select the "Show none" setting, they would still be able to see replies with themselves in the question, but only by going to their replies page. However, if I was to select any setting, I'd still see Tweets like:

"Just asked @ev what he was doing."

Despite the fact @ev is included, it is not a direct reply to him, it is showing other Twitter users that I have spoken to @ev. (Yes, I know, it gets very confusing )

As I mentioned at the start of this entry, Twitter has removed this setting completely, disallowing users to change this setting. Instead, Twitter has made it so that users automatically use what was the second setting: "Only show replies if you're following both the sender and the person being replied to." This means that if I send the Tweet mentioned above:

"@ev What are you doing?"

Only people following both myself and @ev would be able to see the Tweet. As again mentioned, users are still able to see Tweets just mentioning users, like:

"Just asked @ev what he was doing."

However, if, for example, I was to send the Tweet to @ev, he would not be able to see the Tweet because he is not following me. The only way of seeing this would be for him to check his replies feed, which, because he is CEO would be very full. The same principle of people not seeing messages you send to them unless they check their replies feed is the same for anyone you send a reply to who is not following you.

This same issue applies in a case like this: I am following @chrisdjmoyles, though I am not following @ev (for example, I am, in fact, following both). If @chrisdjmoyles sends a Tweet to @ev reading "@ev Hello, I like Twitter." I would not be able to see this Tweet as I am not following ev. I would only be able to see this Tweet if I were to go to @chrisdjmoyles' Twitter profile page. However, this sort of thing is not really quick and easy when you have to constantly keep checking people's profiles to see if they say anything.

Many Twitterers have been commenting on this all week (since the update) and are hating it. Mostly it is because many people like to view the Tweet being replied to and possibly follow that person.

Many Twitterers have also been making a hashtag (popular subject tagged with something preceded by a #) with #twitterfail and #fixreplies and tagging many of their "hate mail" as it were, with this particular tag. They are both some of the most mentioned things that they have BOTH made it into the Trending topics: an item in Twitter listing the 10 most mentioned words or phrases.

Discuss your thoughts on this topic in the comments and on Twitter itself.

In other news: Remember, the vote for the next video ends on Sunday 18th. There have already been many entries, enter yours now, it may be the video!

For now,

Yours,

Ratscallion