There’s been a lot of griping about the mainstreaming of Twitter, whether it be alpha-geeks being threatened over “normal people” invading “their turf” or, more recently, spammers invading the trending topics with garbage and, in some cases, malcontent. Those items haven’t bothered me that badly; Twitter is richer with more people using the service, and while spammers in the trending topics are terrible, it’s not necessarily a bad problem to have if you’re a fledgling service (“look, we’re being spammed – we’ve made it!”). No, my biggest fear has been Twitter changing the experience and watering down features, and tonight, they’ve forcibly changed my experience in a way I do not appreciate.
Twitter will no longer show me replies to people I’m not following. Previously, Twitter let users control the level of conversation in their streams in three ways:
- See @replies to people you are following — conversation between only those you follow showed up in your stream
- See all @replies — any reply to any user, regardless of whether you were following them or not, showed up in your stream
- No @replies — show no conversation in your stream
By default, new users got the experience now being forced on everyone: They’d only see conversations between the folks they’re following. This was fine for decreasing noise for one-ended conversations, but what if you ran across a side of a conversation that was relevant to you and you wanted to see more? What if the person on the other side of the conversation was very much relevant to what you’re looking for in someone to follow? Discovering folks by conversation you find fascinating is absolutely the best way to add to your following, and to not have at least the option to turn on that full stream to enable that discovery really bothers me, because that was part of what made Twitter so rich.
Change it back, Twitter. You’ve hijacked my user experience and I don’t appreciate it.
Discussion of Twitter’s “small settings update” is a big mistake is now closed
Well said. #openreplies
I agree completely. Thats my main way of finding new people to follow.
I agree, at least give us the option.
I agree with you. Twitter is about conversation. Lots of the people I follow are chatty. They express themselves by talking to others. Specific others, rather than the Twitterverse. This is a terrible change. It has made Twitter feel quiet this evening and much less relevant. I can handle the withdraw of not being on Twitter for much of the day, but it is frustrating to be on Twitter and find nothing there.
I completely agree… change it back, Twitter, for goodness sake.
The enormity of disabling this option is kind of staggering. Now gone for everyone is the serendipity of finding new people to follow, as well as (for one hypothetical example) missing out on the most awesome thing one of your followees ever said… because they said it as a reply to someone you don’t follow.
The change certainly must have dramatically reduced Twitter’s server load and database calls, and the cynic in me wonders if that’s the real reason they made the change.
Edited this a bit.
One True b!X, at first I couldn’t help but think you’re right re: server load. Then I got to thinking — wow, that’s a lot of per-tweet logic that would have to be executed for every user. Is this tweet to someone this person is following? Is it not? I can’t imagine there would be gains with each computation over just serving up the tweet.
I’m with you. This new change really sucks.
Twitter’s “small settings update” is a big mistake http://bit.ly/13atbJ
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
It appears there are many who agree with you on Twitter…it will be interesting to see Twitter response.
Rich Tucker
I agree, it seems counter-intuitive to take an option out of the product when the default was already Twitter’s ‘preferred’ method or setting. They’ve stripped out a very powerful tool for finding new people, something that it likely especially important what with Neilson’s data that nearly half of new Twitter users abandon the site in the first month after signing up.
I suspect the decision on this setting change was because it’s difficult to explain the value in ‘half conversations’ to people who barely understand ‘how to Twitter’ in the first place. Getting rid of the @replies from others appeals to keeping things within your own social graph without trying to expand.
I agree. It is a great way to find new people to follow. I’ve found mutual friends of those that I follow, that I didn’t know were using Twitter, and added them to my follow list.
Hey Twitter… Put it back the way it was.
I’ll agree that the setting was a bit tough to explain, Jonathan — heck, I had to reword my post a couple times after publishing because what I said didn’t make sense.
However, no harm in simply moving some of those power-user features to an Advanced tab.
I agree, I’m not a fan of this change, really.
“Twitter’s ’small settings update’ is a big mistake” –> http://bit.ly/h9B88 (via @bjorker) #fixreplies
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
@trx0x Read this: http://bit.ly/d57Yq
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
http://digg.com/u13DAG ja http://digg.com/u13CvV eelmise teema jätkuks #twitter
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Via @jaredwsmith: “Twitter’s ’small settings update’ is a big mistake”: http://bit.ly/d57Yq
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
http://bit.ly/d57Yq
#fixreplies
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
While it sucks for those who did have all @replies turned on, you need to realize that this is like 2% of all twitter users. While 2% of millions is still thousands of people, it’s not that significant in the grand scheme of things.
I’ve had all @replies turned on before and switched it back a few months ago. The extra conversations were fun sometimes but because of it I had to keep the number of people I followed down. Since I went back to the default settings I can follow and keep up better with 350-400 people than I ever did with 200-250 people and all their replies to everyone. And I still find good people to follow even on the default setting.
I guess I feel the benefit of a wider variety of people and content is better than the drawbacks of not seeing every single thing your friends may say. I don’t listen to all of my friends’ conversations in real life and I don’t think it’s necessary to on twitter either.
One of the primary reasons that Twitter appeals to me is that I van gong out about what is going on the San Francisco art scene and share that information with my followers. Frequently this happens when I read a RT from someone that I follow of a tweet of someone that I do not follow. Also I RT art news & my followers all see it, even if they are not following the person that I RT. Disabling this makes Twitter completely diminishes the service. Another example: I follow food & wine Twitters. Frequently they RT a new restaurant in SF which may be an original tweet by someone that I do not currently follow. Now I do not get that information. This is truly an example of throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Via @jaredwsmith: “Twitter’s ’small settings update’ is a big mistake”: http://bit.ly/d57Yq Sounds like throwing out baby with bath water
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Agreed.
This comment was originally posted on http://93octane.posterous.com/)“>93octane’s posterous
Michael, note that your retweets aren’t affected — just public replies directed to a user.
Vinnie, imagine following 1100+ and keeping all @replies on.
I do realize this is a feature that not a lot of people were using. I’m just always in favor of erring on the side of the user rather than making a centralized change. Maybe Twitter knows something I don’t — perhaps their support was being bombarded with questions about the setting? Tough to say. I wish, if that were the case, that they had explained that as part of the reasoning behind the change. It wasn’t well explained and I think that’s what’s lent fuel to the upset reaction.
Anybody else hear about this whole #openreplies / #fixreplies debacle? Gah… http://bit.ly/loTa5
This comment was originally posted on Twitter