AlexSchleber: @unmarketing RT: Twagiarism: Taking someone's tweet and sending it out as your own. Put RT in front of their name THEN the tweet

23 minutes ago from web · Reply · View Tweet

unmarketing: @AlexSchleber u put the RT after my name just to spite me, didn't you. Touche...

less than a minute later from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet

AlexSchleber: @unmarketing BTW Scott, using the "RT @username: .." format breaks the "in reply to link", so the next reader can't jump 2 the original.

2 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

AlexSchleber: @unmarketing ..been using "@username RT: .." instead which avoids this, as an experiment. Not sure if it confuses peeps tho, your thoughts?

1 minute later from web · Reply · View Tweet

unmarketing: @AlexSchleber that's because it's not a reply. No need to see original since it's a retweet with the username

less than 5 seconds later from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet

unmarketing: @AlexSchleber it looks like you are replying to me with your own tweet and only ppl who follow both of us can see it

half a minute later from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet

AlexSchleber: @unmarketing good point, hadn't considered the latter, tho the appearance issue is only due 2 habit (not that every1 RT's the same way), no?

3 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

unmarketing: @AlexSchleber more of what ppl are accustomed to, and also allows all followers to share in reading the RT

2 minutes later from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet

AlexSchleber: @unmarketing the break of "in reply to" is stripping a lot of info/context out of Twitter. To find an original later, u have to do a search.

less than a minute later from web · Reply · View Tweet

unmarketing: @AlexSchleber most retweets are done of stand-alone statements as opposed to replies in a conversation

less than a minute later from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet

AlexSchleber: @unmarketing my followers still see the "@.. RT" to you, no? & urs wouldn't see my "RT @.." unless they were following me. Who's left out?

4 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

unmarketing: @AlexSchleber the default setting in twitter is you only see @ replies if you're following both the tweeter and original writer

less than a minute later from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet

AlexSchleber: @unmarketing true, I consider that kind of a bug (that it's the default, b/c most don't know to change; of course every1 free to restrict).

3 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

AlexSchleber: @unmarketing Similarly, I guess u could say that it's a bug that Twitter takes out the "in reply to" link (for the settings reason) with RT

3 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

I was just reminded of something important by Scott (@unmarketing), and learned something in the process:

There is a real conflict in the Twitter design/API regarding @replies vs. RTs (which are themselves a "crowd-sourced" , emergent add-on, which wouldn't have even been necessary if Twitter had been a better job with "Favorites").

Since Twitter will by default hide @replies from users UNLESS they follow both parties in the exchange (kind of a bug in my view as a default, and I highly recommend setting it to "All @ replies"), my experimental RT format of "@username RT: .." doesn't work as intended.

So it's a forced choice between Retweet spread & threading/context information remaining intact. Some may argue that the latter doesn't matter that much since Twitter moves so fast, but I would hold that in quite a few cases, having the threading/temporal context persist is very insightful/valuable.

Twitter is both synchronous (chat/IM-like) AND asynchronous (more like email, blogging), wherein lies a lot of its power and appeal. Too bad this is making us choose right now.