Yes, I believe Twitter has just become even less useful. In a very vague statement today that I guess Twitter doesn’t expect us to understand, Twitter removed, without warning or feedback from users it would seem, any and all Tweets in your stream that include @replies to people you are not following. Previously this was an option you could turn on or off, but Biz Stone, founder of Twitter, says in this “small settings update” that “receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.”
It would appear that Twitter again seems to think Twitter should be used in one way.
What it would appear just happened is in a single blog post, Twitter has killed the weekly phenomena, #followfriday. The tradition was to refer people your followers may not know, but you recommend following. With the removal of this feature, if I’m understanding correctly (please correct me if I’m wrong), you will no longer see #followfriday posts with names of users you don’t follow, rendering #followfriday completely useless.
Confused? Based on the last sentence of their post, it seems that Twitter doesn’t care.
UPDATE: Twitter has removed the last sentence that said “Confused? That’s understandable and exactly why we made the update.” and instead replaced it with the following clarification:
The Importance of Discovery
Spotting new folks in tweets is an interesting way to check out new profiles and find new people to follow. Despite this update, you’ll still see mentions or references linking to people you don’t follow. For example, you’ll continue to see, “Ev meeting with @biz about work stuff” even if you don’t follow @biz. We’ll be introducing better ways to discover and follow interesting accounts as we release more features in this space.
UPDATE 2: It would appear you still can’t see the above Tweet if it starts with @biz and you don’t follow @biz, removing many valuable discoverable Tweets from your stream.
I assume this is only the case if you use the Twitter Web interface? If you use a third-party application like Tweetdeck, you would still be able to see all @ replies to your account. Correct me if I'm wrong. If I am right, then this is yet another reason to use third-party Twitter applications instead of the Web interface.
What I got from that Twitter Blog post was that you could see @replies from people you were following to other people you weren't following. However, if it included YOUR TWITTER NAME, you would still get the reply notice.
Although Twitter didn't want to confuse, I'm more confused now after writing this…
Let me know what you discover.
From what I've been seeing so far, and from how I interpreted the notification, you won't see @replies that are exclusively directed at people you don't follow. If it contains @names for 10 tweeters and you follow 1 of those 10, you should still see the message.
This is *completely* wrong.
Have you ever used a Twitter client? Twitter.com will work exactly like those clients work, in terms of the tweets that you view.
Before, you would by default always see every tweet from your friends..even if it started with an @reply to someone that you don't follow. It's important to note that it's a tweet that *starts* with an @reply to someone you don't follow.
You'll *always* be able to see tweets that reference others, you just won't see tweets that are directly replies to people you don't follow AND are tweets that start with @replies to someone you don't follow.
Photo-John, then maybe they just killed their Web Interface? 😉
Nate, which I believe kills most of the usefulness of #followfriday. The
purpose of #followfriday is to discover new people.
Sam, most #followfriday posts start with an @reply. Twitter just killed an
important discovery tool.
Hmmn. I am not sure that this will kill #followfriday.
I (@weiks) follow you, @jesse. This friday, if I tweet:
@jesse @otherfriends #followfriday
Then, my friends will get the tweet. What is missing is that *you* won't be alerted to the fact that I suggested you to other people. That is, unless you are following me!
Does that sound like a reasonable way to interpret Biz's remark? I think that he is addressing the needs of the uber-twitters who may get inundated with @replies from their tens of thousands of followers.
Interesting issue. Thanks for alerting me to it.
I totally agree with Jesse.
I think with this latest change Twitter is trying to solve a problem that is not a problem.
The aforementioned confusion is not confusing if you use the “in reply to” link in the tweet. That is one of the reasons why I think all Twitter clients should have this feature.
Following a conversation is one of the best way to discover new people you want to follow.
Having the default setting as not to see any of these replies to people you don't follow reduces the effectiveness of the service.
I hope John's assumptions about using 3rd party Twitter client is correct, unless Twitter's latest changes is done to their API also.
BTW: I don't see the new option in my Notice section of my Settings. Are they again releasing the feature in small chunks?
FollowFriday aside, they've taken out a great Discovery mechanism in the Twitter ecosystem… Those fragments of conversations may not make much sense, but I know for a fact I've followed people because one of my followers was conversing with someone else I don't follow.
Michael, actually, it's the other way around. If you start it with my name
to recommend me to your friends, and they're not following me, they won't
see your recommendation (except through Twitter search).
Michael, actually, it's the other way around. If you start it with my name
to recommend me to your friends, and they're not following me, they won't
see your recommendation (except through Twitter search).
Seriously?
Vinko, the option isn't there because they removed it. It used to be an
option to turn those on or off. Now it's simply not there, and default in
the off position.
What they've done is made it far more prohibitive to discover relevant people based on conversation you find interesting. That's how we did it in the old days before the Suggested Users list, and I don't appreciate one iota having that option removed. I discovered more people through those one-sided conversation fragments than any other method.
OK I agreed with the other restrictions… those were reasonable… but that is just ridiculous and is a huge hinderence for Twitter.
I agree with Jd. That is why I always try to phrase my tweets so that the spirit of the tweet I am replying to are contained in my reply.
This way anyone; including people that I don't follow, who come across my reply tweet will have enough information to understand the my tweet, and may spark their interests enough to click on the “in reply” link to see the conversation I am participating in.
I don't believe #followfriday will be affected, unless the tweet BEGINS with an @username. I think mentioning someone in a tweet will still work. Otherwise they would have also just killed Retweeting. :p
However, I still hate this change and I guarantee you the community will speak out and have it revoked.
I guess I wonder why they couldn't just revert everyone to the 'off' position of the setting then allow those of us who appreciate the 'feature' to turn it back on again?
I'm still getting @replies from people I'm not following so I think we're ok (9:17 p.m.)
Totally agree; it seems like a change with little gain, since seeing @'s of people you don't follow was an option you had to enable. I only found it this morning (after 14 months), was psyched to change the setting and six hours later learned it was gone. But I've been seeing #followfriday tweets all along. I can't quite figure that out.
I don't like this. I've made a lot of my connections on twitter by following half-conversations. If I'm understanding correctly this eliminates the ability to help a friends friend out when you might have something useful to share because you can't see them.
I think Twitter is pulling a Facebook. They're getting too big too fast and forgetting what made them great.
Bring Back The Half-Conversation.
Drew, I believe most #followfriday posts begin with @username
Seriously, when I started tweeting, I found most of the people that I ended up befriending and following because other friends were having conversations with them, then I added them.
Taking this out of the hands of the user is a bad idea. 🙁
Julie, it's indeed confusing. I think it's only the #followfriday posts that
begin with @username that will be affected.
Oh… you see I am confused by Biz's post in their blog.
This is even worst than I originally thought.
The old option http://help.twitter.com/forums/23786/entries/14595 which still appears in their Help pages needs to be restored.
Twitter should at least implemented this “Biz desired” change by changing the default of this setting instead of removing it.
It's pretty annoying. I get comfortable using Twitter one way, and I quite like it that way, but then they decide to up and change it. Why should I use their service?
Good going Twitter, nice to see you pay attention to what your users do on Fridays. What else can you do to screw up your service?
Nate, the @reply must be from someone you're following that @replies someone
you're not following – make sense?
Are you receiving @replies sent by the person you follow to people you don't? That is what Twitter killed with this latest change.
We just have to reformat #FollowFriday tweets from now on.
Actually I normally format my #FollowFriday tweets in the following formats, so may be my posts will not be effected.
Actually, I belive that's the way that won't work. If it starts with an
@username that your followers aren't following, they won't see it. In
addition, #followfriday or not, this removes an important discovery piece of
Twitter.
It's funny, those of you with “J names” who have commented previously have it figured out. The rest of you don't know what you're talking about. Notice my first name also begins with the letter J. Coincidence?
But I just a reply from someone I'm not following – was a RT that I could see in my @replies on web
If what people here are saying is true and this only affects tweets beginning with @ then starting a follow Friday tweet with the tag #followfriday would be a workaround.
Then again, more syntax rules just makes Twitter less useful for the average user.
Oh, not sure on that! So if @jesse replies to someone that I'm not following, I'm not going to see that @reply…
Yeah, don't get that at all – would hope they make that optional again, although I never saw the option before.
This only applies to a reply to a specific tweet, not a general @reply to a user not on your follower list.
That's how I do it, too. In fact, the ones I see are usually done that way (Creative folks – writers, artists, and the like). Most folks give a short reason to start, or they start it with the #followfriday hashtag. I almost never see @ signs at the beginning, unless it's folks just RTing recommendations of people they don't even know.
But, as I will freely admit, this may only be among the creative types that I see. Great debate, though, and regardless of its final effect, it was still a ridiculous bit of over-engineering that didn't need to happen.
I hardly ever see a #FollowFriday tweet that starts with an @reply..and if they do, all users have to do is change the structure of your tweets. Start the tweet with #FollowFriday and you're good to go. Heck, even a space before the @Reply would trick Twitter into displaying your tweet, more than likely.
Twitter hardly killed #FollowFriday. Tons of people use Twitter clients and therefore wouldn't see FollowFriday posts that start with @Replies….yet I'm sure plenty of them still do #FollowFriday posts themselves and see many others' FF posts.
The problem with the suggested users list is that even it was just celebs (internet celebs) that they handpicked, so they weren't really giving new user any real value than idol worship, which really does make Diddy's “mass email” approach to Twitter even more valid.
This drives down decent conversation precipitously, and gives newbs a myspace like impression of the service.
There's a lot of other “undesirable” things they should be focusing on. ie., Affiliate marketers who don't disclose what they're doing, follow bot's, etc. I could go on and on!
That format should work I think, since you don't start with @username
Don't fix what's not broken. Whatever it was, it was part of what has made twitter what twitter has become. I have no idea what it is and what they did to it, but it was working fine I think. If it was a problem, then we'd know more about it to complain about it. Removing whatever it was just makes me want to complain about it being taken away from us before we could make the most of it. Bring it back! 😉
They specifically say: “you'll continue to see, “Ev meeting with @biz about work stuff” even if you don't follow @biz. “
So “followfriday @gudmagazine @kaolinfire” will still work, too.
I think that #followfriday has very little value because it has been abused….some people will tweet out almost everyone of their followers as a recommendation (no value). But I will miss the @replies with relevant conversation that I will now not have an option to see. And I did find great people to follow through those conversations.
Agreed – I wish they'd eliminate all the new spam I'm seeing all the time.
Yeah, but this sucks, because, like others have said, I have found some of my best connections on Twitter because of the specific reply Tweets regarding a link to a great article or whatever.
Interested to see how this all pans out…
I disagree that today's announcement from @biz will kill #followfriday. Under the Discovery Still Possible section he mentions that you'd still receive the example tweet even if you were following @biz.
Forget the fact that #followfriday is annoying.
I would rather have the choice to setup my account as I choose but I've had these settings in my account for months and it's been a much better experience. Sure, it requires a little adjustment but it's not as bad as it seems.
I don't think this will affect #followfriday, as those are usually not sent as @ reply's but as simple updates with the @ names listed. However, I do wish they hadn't made this change, as it was a good way to find new and interesting people to follow.
Well not just follow friday but meowmonday, tunatuesday, woofwednesday and thankfulthursday
I'm reading that differently apparently. The twitter blog states: “For example, you'll continue to see, “Ev meeting with @biz about work stuff” even if you don't follow @biz.” Thus, presumably if I tweet: I really love following @HeyAmaretto.” All of my followers, even those who don't follow Diane, will see that tweet.
Besides blogging about it…
Try this: http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/topics/we_wa…
no it's affecting my tweetdeck as well
You can still do this and probably more efficiently by visiting your friends twitter page directly and picking up new follows there, right?
I am new with using Twitter. I have only learned of the follow fridays last week. I found it to be wonderful as I found people to follow due to recommendations from people that have interesting tweets for me. I would hate to see this abolished.
With this new Twitter change, if you're following me and I @reply my friend @kylehase whom you're not following. You will not see my @reply to @kylehase.
Right after his tweet, I replied to Jesse with a similar message (replies vs mentions), and that #followfriday is alive and well.
http://twitter.com/SterlingOkura/status/1780490130
So #followfriday usage will require making it a mention rather than a reply. Many (including myself) already do it that way so others don't think it's a reply and ignore it. Nothing really changes here.
I like the snippets of conversation! Like many others here I've found great people to follow that way. I hope Twitter checks out some of these conversations so that they can reconsider. They heard the complaints of people who didn't like it – now what of the complaints from the people who do like it?
I find the #followfriday thing to be very useful, perhaps because I'm a relatively small scale user. A recommendation from someone credible helps me identify good accounts to follow, and the handful of times I've been recommended have been flattering and gratifying, and have resulted in some great new connections.
That said, I don't think it's a huge deal to start those posts with something besides the @.
On the other hand, I'd always much rather have a choice. Why not let users decide? For those of us who scan and dip very comfortably, it can be valuable to keep the @replies in the flow.
Everything still seems to be showing up on FF, so that's cool.
I'm confused as to why this has to kill #followfriday. The vast majority of #followfriday tweets I have always seen, do not start with @username. Even those who do, all they have to do is then start it with something else. How about “#followfriday” or “hey I like @username b/c of X Y and Z”. Doesn't seem that big a deal.
Follow friday is annoying as shit anyway
Amen!
Right. I can however go to your twitter page and see all of your conversations, which is exactly what I do with my most interesting tweets. On their pages I find new interesting tweeps to follow. I tried the option (when it used to be an option) to see all @replies–overwhelmed me with too much noise.
soooo…. I am not the smartest dude in the world, but this seems a bit silly, right? I like that it takes away the list of @replies for #followfriday, so maybe thats a good thing…
Explain this to me? Would this tweet make it through: “I recommend @jesse because he is a fantastic developer, and @louisgray because he can handle twins. #followfriday”?
If not, then twitter starting about a month ago by removing #followfriday from trending topics has specifically attempted to take something that their users enjoy (170k tweets last friday), and destroy it.
Hmmm…. love a company that believes that things their users enjoy suck, and kill them.
Of course, I could be totally wrong. It has happened. Once. (Thats my Johnny Dangerously reference)
Methinks this decision was made to appease and retain the Internet dunces who signed up for Twitter because they heard Kathi Lee Gifford mention it on the fourth hour of the Today Show. At one point I think the default setting when you first signed up for Twitter was that you would automatically see the replies of everyone you follow, regardless of if you follow the person they replied to. You had to be smart enough to go in and change your settings if you didn't want to see that much information. As a result, I can imagine a lot of Twitter newbies got frustrated with all the replies cluttering up their view and decided Twitter was too exhausting. Philistines.
Now that Twitter has gone more mainstream and is being mentioned by the likes of “Us Weekly” I think the whole interface is going to start being dumbed down for the masses. It's unfortunate.
Jesse, actually, most #followfriday tweets don't begin with @username, and @humancell explains why his site, http://topfollowfriday.com/ doesn't include #followfriday tweets that start with an @username in the help docs: http://topfollowfriday.com/help.php#any_special…
I don't agree with Twitter's decision by any means, even though I kept the option disabled. I know that several of my Twitter friends use the option because they'll chime in when I @reply an individual they don't follow. I think it's foolish to take that option (that's disabled by default and shouldn't cause any “confusion”) away from the users.
That tweet would get through fine based on my understanding. The only tweets that will be affected are the ones that *begin* with an @username (i.e. if someone that you follow sends me an @reply [assuming you don't follow me, which you don't] like this: “@mclaughj nice blog man!”, you won't see it. But if they say “Wow, @mclaughj has a nice blog.”, you'll still get it.
Micah, I think that one would work. It has to start with the username. I think #followfriday can still go on – people will just have to adapt.
I didn't realize Twitter removed #followfriday from the trending topics. I think they did the same for #socialtoo.
The huge benefits from a tweet like:
“@vinko Your blog is amazing.”
From respected users like @leolaporte or @kevinrose will be almost completely lost with this new setting.
*In reply*? What's that? What app do you use that allows it?
@Jesse, thanks for alerting us. I wish twitter will read all the blog posts and comments and understand how we want to be part of the solution and engage with us when they want to make such drastic changes.
@reply in all forms is the life blood of twitter, I hope they bring it back.
Thanks @ECS Dave, good idea to post on getsatisfaction too, we all should do it.
#followfriday won't be affected unless users (incorrectly) start tweets with an @reply. That's always been a mistake as only the intended user (and others mentioned in the tweet) would see it. You should also start FFs with #followfriday or some other text.
Also, let's clear this up – it won't stop me @replying people who aren't following me. I can still @ev, if he's not on my list, but what I won't see is @biz's replies to @ev, unless I'm following both of them.
Personally think that's the way it should be. I don't agree that Twitter has removed the option for those to have it the previous way if they desired, but from day one I've always thought that seeing ALL @replies was a somewhat chaotic approach, and I've never entirely understood why anybody preferred it.
Once again, this only affects tweets that *start* with @replies to people you are not following. Anything later in the tweet will not (i.e., “I'm meeting with @Ev later”) will still be visible to all followers.
Sheamus, it still doesn't solve the problem of talking about someone.
For instance, what if I wanted to tweet, “@ev is eating lunch with
us”. Or “@biz is a pretty cool guy – you should follow him”. I'd
rather not have to think about how to restructure that. Let us tweet
how we want.
ditto
Problem is you're 'misusing' the twitter syntax in your example because twitter identifies any tweet that starts with the @ symbol as a @reply and therefore processes it according to a set of rules. It's fine to tweet how you want, but also be aware of the way the system works so that you don't get caught out.
[…] There’s a buzz on Twitter this morning that an attempt has been made on the life of #FollowFriday (see staynalive.com/articles/2009/05/12/did-twitter-just-kill-followfriday/) […]
@god, Lord, I pray that more people will follow you through our twittering conversations; however, twitter must have hired Satan and f*cked it up for all of us!
That's correct; it was *always*, for want of a better expression, “doing it wrong”, even before this tweak, to start any non-reply with an @. 98% of Twitter users had their settings configured to show only replies from followers, so all those people missed your recommendations, honourable as they were. Same goes for everybody else.
[…] was always good practice and is especially so now Twitter has made this change. Despite concerns, this adjustment does not impact #followfriday in any way – unless you’ve been doing it wrong […]
Twitter hides replies to people you don't follow! Agree or Disagree with new terms? http://HotTopicsPoll.com/fixreplies
Storm the castle
Storm the castle!
I agree with you Sam, people would just need to do the #followfriday correctly.
that sucks!
Is this true?? This kills an entire area of usefulness around any kind of gathering where new people are meeting that don't yet know each other. This is, perhaps a top 5 “most appealing feature” of twitter. This is not just disappointing, it's foolish. What could the reason be to justify [this decision]?
starting with @username is sending it to @username as a reply – it's good to have a few syntax rules like this and RT, they're not exactly rocket science! I think the removal of this is disastrous – no more will we see '@someoneidontfollow that was the most insightful thing I have ever read' and be able to follow up on it…. it is a public room after all not a DM.. bring it back!
They didn't kill it. In fact most people already had their replies set that way because it was the default. I know I did. But you're right – a lot of people don't do recommendations right – and so the only people who see their picks are people already following that person. I explained this a few weeks back on my blog:
How to pimp like a pro on Twitter
What's the big deal? Start tweets w/ @replies for private convos, start #followfriday tweets with #followfriday. Everyone wins!
[…] right or wrong for removing the feature. While Twitter recommendation memes such as #followfriday could be affected, Mr. Tweet users won’t experience a complete loss in new valuable […]
Ok… just to clear this one up. I checked (as you know I use justSignal to track Follow Friday for http://followfridays.com).
I have every Follow Friday tweet from 4/13 – 5/13 (last 30 days). There are a total of 771,244 Tweets. Of those 220,166 BEGIN with @username. That is 28.5% of the Tweets.
So definitely NOT most… but a very significant percentage.
Also, we've added User Filters to justSignal on FollowFridays. What does that mean? You can filter the total Follow Friday Tweet Stream by what it is about people you want to discover. Want to find PR folks to follow… add a User Filter for PR…
Follow Friday is most certainly NOT dead.
ok first of all #followfriday is a hash tag so if you are following the hashtag for #followfriday you will still see all recommendations. As for the @reply users just need to ensure to start their recommendations with #followfriday
[…] it is a very big deal. There has been rampant speculation (ignited, near as I can tell, by this post from Jesse Stay of SocialToo) that this change “kills” Follow […]
Bingo, I always start them with #FollowFriday because, as mentioned elsewhere, not seeing replies to people you don't follow was the DEFAULT ANYWAY.
Soooo, Follow Friday would still be alive if I typed in for instance, In Friday Follow with @alapoet, @marijuana_news, and @bongingjesus? So, Follow Friday is still here, we just have to be more creative in approaching it.
[…] as his company Twitter, in a surprise move today, angered many of its users by removing a popular feature (#fixreplies #twitterfail). The removed feature was, arguably, the most important social networking […]
All u have to do is do your follow Fridays without the hashtag. Same thing, will still work.
Outside of a poorly worded blog post (perhaps), does this not smell of arbitrarily making decisions about how I might want to use Twitter? If the structure is geared towards simple update broadcasts why would you modify that or otherwise limit?
The debate is not whether I can get #followfriday updates… the point is that Twitter seems to arbitrarily decide that not listening to it's customer base is in its best interest:
“Based on usage patterns and feedback, we've learned most people WANT to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow… HOWEVER, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don't follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today's update removes this undesirable and confusing option.”
Is anyone else picking up on the simple fact that they just gave their “usage patterns and feedback” the boot?
That qualifies as an undesirable option chosen by a confused group of people I reckon.
Ken, I agree. That was my original purpose for posting this – #followfriday
is only one simple use-case where Twitter's decisions on behalf of their
users could seriously affect the way their users want to use the service.
Twitter needs to stop making decisions for their users based on the way
they use the service (or at least stop making it look like that's what
they're doing) and start letting the users make their own decisions. It's
about empowering your users (as Chris Brogan would say).
Give it back!
#FollowFriday aside (indeed it's pretty easy to change the format) __If I follow someone… then I'd like to see everything they tweet. That includes their @replies to those I don't follow. I think twitter made a big mistake and it does seem they don't really care what we have to say about it.____
I love twitter… but this seems to me like one of the first “corporate moves” that twitter made, that completely alienates the hardcore users.
Having been on Twitter actively only a month, and asking repeatedly, I had still not gotten an answer as to exactly why the hastag was used on #FollowFriday. This week I planned to just sent out less people per message and tell a little more, like “here are three doctors I like” and give “@docs” three times, or “here r three mystery writers that are also good Twitters.” Why was it ever necessary to use the hashtag and FollowFriday? Obviously I do not, in other words, understand hashtags but you apply it to an important function.
[…] γνωστοί και ισχυροί bloggers και μέσα σε ελάχιστα λεπτά εμφανίστηκαν δεκάδες άρθρα εναντίον της απόφασης αυτής. Οι χρήστες […]
Gotta say I agree with Sam. I've never seen a #FollowFriday post beginning with an @name.
Ditto for retweets. Starting it with an @name would automatically prevent others who aren't following the @name from seeing it. Kind of ruins the purpose of suggesting people to follow or RTs.
Also, didn't Twitter just make the default behavior the only behavior? The option WAS confusing. I don't see how taking away the option destroys #FollowFriday if it we still have the default behavior.
You can try starting a fire, but there's no fuel to sustain it.
followfriday has jumped the shark. it's a pain in the ass. good riddance.
I never begin my #followfriday tweets with @username. I always introduce them with the hashtag.
It looks like Twitter, more exactly Evan and Biz, are standing firm on the new change.
errr what?
Why do they have to change it…
[…] I mentioned on Tuesday in response to Twitter’s new changes that it could be impossible for anyone to see your suggestions on #followfriday if you started your Tweet…. Based on your responses, my assumption was part right, and part wrong. #followfriday is not going […]
[…] I mentioned on Tuesday in response to Twitter’s new changes that it could be impossible for anyone to see your suggestions on #followfriday if you started your Tweet…. Based on your responses, my assumption was part right, and part wrong. #followfriday is not going […]
[…] I mentioned on Tuesday in response to Twitter’s new changes that it could be impossible for anyone to see your suggestions on #followfriday if you started your Tweet…. Based on your responses, my assumption was part right, and part wrong. #followfriday is not going […]
[…] I mentioned on Tuesday in response to Twitter’s new changes that it could be impossible for anyone to see your suggestions on #followfriday if you started your Tweet…. Based on your responses, my assumption was part right, and part wrong. #followfriday is not going […]
[…] I mentioned on Tuesday in response to Twitter’s new changes that it could be impossible for anyone to see your suggestions on #followfriday if you started your Tweet…. Based on your responses, my assumption was part right, and part wrong. #followfriday is not going […]
[…] I mentioned on Tuesday in response to Twitter’s new changes that it could be impossible for anyone to see your suggestions on #followfriday if you started your Tweet…. Based on your responses, my assumption was part right, and part wrong. #followfriday is not going […]
[…] I mentioned on Tuesday in response to Twitter’s new changes that it could be impossible for anyone to see your suggestions on #followfriday if you started your Tweet…. Based on your responses, my assumption was part right, and part wrong. #followfriday is not going […]
[…] mentioned on Tuesday in response to Twitter’s new changes that it could be impossible for anyone to see your suggestions on #followfriday if you started your Tweet…. Based on your responses, my assumption was part right, and part wrong. #followfriday is not going […]
your so wrong. why would #followfriday start with a username? who the hell are you replying too.
[…] #followfriday with their @ reply adjustment. (Not sure what I’m referring to? Check out this post.) And, that means we can continue the Costa DeVault #followfriday experiment. (Last week, we […]
your so wrong. why would #followfriday start with a username? who the hell are you replying too.
[…] 2. Did Twitter Just Kill #followfriday? […]
[…] reports suggested that Twitter was hiding all “mentions” of other users, effectively killing the #followfriday meme, this turned out not to be the case. But the core issue remained: This minor […]
[…] 2. Did Twitter Just Kill #followfriday? […]
[…] reports suggested that Twitter was hiding all “mentions” of other users, effectively killing the #followfriday meme, this turned out not to be the case. But the core issue remained: This minor […]
@Jesse, thanks for alerting us. I wish twitter will read all the blog posts and comments and understand how we want to be part of the solution and engage with us when they want to make such drastic changes.
@reply in all forms is the life blood of twitter, I hope they bring it back.
Thanks @ECS Dave, good idea to post on getsatisfaction too, we all should do it.
The huge benefits from a tweet like:
“@vinko Your blog is amazing.”
From respected users like @leolaporte or @kevinrose will be almost completely lost with this new setting.
That tweet would get through fine based on my understanding. The only tweets that will be affected are the ones that *begin* with an @username (i.e. if someone that you follow sends me an @reply [assuming you don't follow me, which you don't] like this: “@mclaughj nice blog man!”, you won't see it. But if they say “Wow, @mclaughj has a nice blog.”, you'll still get it.
soooo…. I am not the smartest dude in the world, but this seems a bit silly, right? I like that it takes away the list of @replies for #followfriday, so maybe thats a good thing…
Explain this to me? Would this tweet make it through: “I recommend @jesse because he is a fantastic developer, and @louisgray because he can handle twins. #followfriday”?
If not, then twitter starting about a month ago by removing #followfriday from trending topics has specifically attempted to take something that their users enjoy (170k tweets last friday), and destroy it.
Hmmm…. love a company that believes that things their users enjoy suck, and kill them.
Of course, I could be totally wrong. It has happened. Once. (Thats my Johnny Dangerously reference)
Follow friday is annoying as shit anyway
I'm confused as to why this has to kill #followfriday. The vast majority of #followfriday tweets I have always seen, do not start with @username. Even those who do, all they have to do is then start it with something else. How about “#followfriday” or “hey I like @username b/c of X Y and Z”. Doesn't seem that big a deal.
I find the #followfriday thing to be very useful, perhaps because I'm a relatively small scale user. A recommendation from someone credible helps me identify good accounts to follow, and the handful of times I've been recommended have been flattering and gratifying, and have resulted in some great new connections.
That said, I don't think it's a huge deal to start those posts with something besides the @.
On the other hand, I'd always much rather have a choice. Why not let users decide? For those of us who scan and dip very comfortably, it can be valuable to keep the @replies in the flow.
Right after his tweet, I replied to Jesse with a similar message (replies vs mentions), and that #followfriday is alive and well.
http://twitter.com/SterlingOkura/status/1780490130
So #followfriday usage will require making it a mention rather than a reply. Many (including myself) already do it that way so others don't think it's a reply and ignore it. Nothing really changes here.
I am new with using Twitter. I have only learned of the follow fridays last week. I found it to be wonderful as I found people to follow due to recommendations from people that have interesting tweets for me. I would hate to see this abolished.
no it's affecting my tweetdeck as well
Well not just follow friday but meowmonday, tunatuesday, woofwednesday and thankfulthursday
I don't think this will affect #followfriday, as those are usually not sent as @ reply's but as simple updates with the @ names listed. However, I do wish they hadn't made this change, as it was a good way to find new and interesting people to follow.
I disagree that today's announcement from @biz will kill #followfriday. Under the Discovery Still Possible section he mentions that you'd still receive the example tweet even if you were following @biz.
Forget the fact that #followfriday is annoying.
I would rather have the choice to setup my account as I choose but I've had these settings in my account for months and it's been a much better experience. Sure, it requires a little adjustment but it's not as bad as it seems.
That format should work I think, since you don't start with @username
The problem with the suggested users list is that even it was just celebs (internet celebs) that they handpicked, so they weren't really giving new user any real value than idol worship, which really does make Diddy's “mass email” approach to Twitter even more valid.
This drives down decent conversation precipitously, and gives newbs a myspace like impression of the service.
I hardly ever see a #FollowFriday tweet that starts with an @reply..and if they do, all users have to do is change the structure of your tweets. Start the tweet with #FollowFriday and you're good to go. Heck, even a space before the @Reply would trick Twitter into displaying your tweet, more than likely.
Twitter hardly killed #FollowFriday. Tons of people use Twitter clients and therefore wouldn't see FollowFriday posts that start with @Replies….yet I'm sure plenty of them still do #FollowFriday posts themselves and see many others' FF posts.
That's how I do it, too. In fact, the ones I see are usually done that way (Creative folks – writers, artists, and the like). Most folks give a short reason to start, or they start it with the #followfriday hashtag. I almost never see @ signs at the beginning, unless it's folks just RTing recommendations of people they don't even know.
But, as I will freely admit, this may only be among the creative types that I see. Great debate, though, and regardless of its final effect, it was still a ridiculous bit of over-engineering that didn't need to happen.
But I just a reply from someone I'm not following – was a RT that I could see in my @replies on web
Nate, the @reply must be from someone you're following that @replies someone
you're not following – make sense?
Good going Twitter, nice to see you pay attention to what your users do on Fridays. What else can you do to screw up your service?
Oh… you see I am confused by Biz's post in their blog.
This is even worst than I originally thought.
The old option http://help.twitter.com/forums/23786/entries/14595 which still appears in their Help pages needs to be restored.
Twitter should at least implemented this “Biz desired” change by changing the default of this setting instead of removing it.
Seriously, when I started tweeting, I found most of the people that I ended up befriending and following because other friends were having conversations with them, then I added them.
Taking this out of the hands of the user is a bad idea. 🙁