Retweet To Become An Officially Supported Function On Twitter
Denna Repaci
This means the retweet function will be supported by third-party clients as well as on Twitter's own Web site. Retweeting means posting another user's interesting tweet to your followers with the letters RT and the original author's username. Currently, this means copying and pasting the tweet and is pretty cumbersome, the extra text often meaning retweeters are forced to edit the original tweet -- with mixed results.
Retweeting is one of the many conventions used on Twitter that began with users rather than the company. Like @replies, retweets are set to be built in to the official Twitter infrastructure after being popularised by users. Hovering over a tweet will show the option to reply or retweet. When you publish a retweet, the original tweeter's link appears separate from the tweet itself, saving you precious characters. The really nifty bit is that it also tells you who else has retweeted the post.
This Craver, for one, welcomes the change: having the initials RT meant retweeting confused the heck out of us for about a month. And while we're on the subject, 'via' means 'by way of', so the right way to retweet is to RT the original author and credit the person who brought it to your attention with a via -- not the other way around. Clear? Good.
The new function should show up in a matter of weeks. Interestingly, some users have today spotted what appears to be a bug on Twitter.com, with a clickable RT link showing up when you hover over a tweet in the home feed. Clicking the link automatically sticks the full post in the text input box, complete with 'RT @whoevertheoriginalauthorwas'.
Let us know if you're seeing this bug in the comments, and tell us how you feel about retweets in the comments: essential viral tool or lazy spamming? In the meantime, why not follow cnetuk -- unless you're a spambot, in which case, get a job.
Web Intents provide flows for working with Tweets & Twitter Users: Tweet, Reply, Retweet, Like, and Follow. They make it possible for users to interact with Twitter content in the context of your site, without leaving the page or having to authorize a new app just for the interaction. Web intents are mobile web friendly, include native app handlers on iOS and Android when the Twitter app is installed, and are super easy to implement.
Web Intents are the simplest way to let people Tweet or follow Twitter accounts directly from your site. Web Intents automatically bring a viewer into the best logged-in experience to complete your specified action, including Tweet composers or Twitter profile views inside Twitter for iOS and Twitter for Android apps. If a viewer does not have a Twitter account they will have the opportunity to log in to Twitter or create an account before completing the originally-specified action. Web Intents do not require setting up a Twitter application, storing app credentials, or prompting a viewer for app permissions before posting.
Web Intents cannot be loaded inside an iframe. A Twitter author must view the full webpage before deciding to author a new Tweet or Tweet action pre-populated by your specified Web Intent or follow a specified Twitter account.
Images for Twitter birds, hearts for liking, icons for replying & retweeting are all available on our Image Resources page. Consult our Display Requirements for tips on rendering Tweets and other Twitter resources.
When combined with standard anchor tags and familiar iconography like the examples below, this JavaScript will automatically open a window of the appropriate size when clicked. You only need to load platform.twitter.com/widgets.js once.
Users like for a variety of reasons: when they love a Tweet, when they want to save it for later, or to offer a signal of thanks. The like intent allows you to provide this Tweet action and follow up with relevant suggested accounts for the user to follow.
You may pass a lang query parameter as part of any web intent to override the language display of a logged-in user or languages accepted by a browser. See Twitter for Websites languages for a list of supported lang values.
Some sites may prefer to embed the unobtrusive web intents JavaScript inline or without a dependency to platform.twitter.com. The snippet below will offer the equivalent functionality without the external dependency.
Twitter, officially known as X since July 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known historically and commonly as "tweets". Registered users can post, like and retweet tweets, and read those that are publicly available.
The counters for "likes", "retweets", and replies appear next to the respective buttons in news feeds, called timelines,[10] such as on profile pages and search results. Counters for likes and retweets exist on a tweet's standalone page too. Since September 2020, quote tweets, formerly known as "retweet with comment", have an own counter on their tweet page.[7] Until the legacy desktop front end that was discontinued in 2020, a row with miniature profile pictures of up to ten liking or retweeting users was displayed (earliest documented implementation in December 2011 overhaul), as well as a tweet reply counter next to the according button on a tweet's page.[11][12]
Twitter allows users to update their profile via their mobile phone either by text messaging or by apps released for certain smartphones and tablets.[13] Twitter has been compared to a web-based Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client.[14] In a 2009 Time magazine essay, technology author Steven Johnson described the basic mechanics of Twitter as "remarkably simple":
As a social network, Twitter revolves around the principle of followers. When you choose to follow another Twitter user, that user's tweets appear in reverse chronological order on your main Twitter page. If you follow 20 people, you'll see a mix of tweets scrolling down the page: breakfast-cereal updates, interesting new links, music recommendations, even musings on the future of education.[15]
The first tweet was posted by Jack Dorsey (creator) at 12:50 pm PST on March 21, 2006, and read "just setting up my twttr".[17] In 2009, the first tweet was sent from space. US astronauts Nicola Stott and Jeff Williams took part in a live 'tweetup' from the International Space Station with around 35 members of the public at the NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.[18]
In March 2021, Jack Dorsey listed his first tweet for sale. The highest bid for the tweet, $2.5 million, came from a Malaysian businessman, Sina Estavi. Along with the metadata of the original tweet, the buyer was to receive a certificate that was digitally signed and verified by Dorsey.[19]
San Antonio-based market-research firm Pear Analytics analyzed 2,000 tweets (originating from the United States and in English) over a two-week period in August 2009 from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm (CST) and separated them into six categories.[20] Pointless babble made up 40%, with 38% being conversational. Pass-along value had 9%, self-promotion 6% with spam and news each making 4%.
Despite Jack Dorsey's own open contention that a message on Twitter is "a short burst of inconsequential information", social networking researcher Danah Boyd responded to the Pear Analytics survey by arguing that what the Pear researchers labeled "pointless babble" is better characterized as "social grooming" or "peripheral awareness" (which she justifies as persons "want[ing] to know what the people around them are thinking and doing and feeling, even when co-presence isn't viable").[21] Similarly, a survey of Twitter users found that a more specific social role of passing along messages that include a hyperlink is an expectation of reciprocal linking by followers.[22]
In 2014, in anticipation for the FIFA World Cup, Twitter introduced hashflags, special hashtags that automatically generate a custom emoji next to them for a certain period of time, following the success of a similar campaign during the 2010 World Cup.[24] Hashflags may be generated by Twitter themselves (such as to raise awareness for social issues)[25] or be purchased by corporations (such as to promote products and events).[26]
To repost a message from another Twitter user and share it with one's own followers, a user can click the retweet button within the Tweet. Users can reply other accounts' replies. Since November 2019, users can hide replies to their messages. Since May 2020, users can select who can reply each of their tweets before sending them: anyone, accounts who follow the poster, specific accounts, and none. This ability was upgraded in July 2021 to make the feature retroactively applicable to tweets after they have been sent out.[27][28]
Through SMS, users can communicate with Twitter through five gateway numbers: short codes for the United States, Canada, India, New Zealand, and an Isle of Man-based number for international use. There is also a short code in the United Kingdom which is only accessible to those on the Vodafone, O2[30] and Orange[31] networks. In India, since Twitter only supports tweets from Bharti Airtel,[32] an alternative platform called smsTweet[33] was set up by a user to work on all networks.[34] A similar platform called GladlyCast exists for mobile phone users in Singapore and Malaysia.[35]
The tweets were set to a largely constrictive 140-character limit for compatibility with SMS messaging, introducing the shorthand notation and slang commonly used in SMS messages. The 140-character limit also increased the usage of URL shortening services such as bit.ly, goo.gl, tinyurl.com, tr.im, and other content-hosting services such as TwitPic, memozu.com and NotePub to accommodate multimedia content and text longer than 140 characters. Since June 2011, Twitter has used its own t.co domain for automatic shortening of all URLs posted on its site, making other link shorteners unnecessary for staying within Twitter's 140 character limit.[36][37]
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