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Twitter’s “small settings update” is a big mistake

Posted at 11:03 pm on May 12, 2009 / tagged: , , , , / comments closed

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.

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  • http://www.patrickokeefe.com Patrick

    I agree, I’m not a fan of this change, really.

  • Pingback: Twitter Kills the Party | Ocell.blog

  • vinnie

    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.

  • vinnie

    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.

  • Michael Yochum

    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.

  • Michael Yochum

    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.

  • http://jaredwsmith.com Jared Smith

    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.

  • http://jaredwsmith.com Jared Smith

    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.

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