Chris, For sure the, that is what I see happening with the Retweet API, the fact that there is no status text on http://twitter.com/statuses/retweet/id.format indicates just that - which is why I would like to see favourites API drastically enhanced in tandem.
Currently this Retweet API serves only as forwarding mechanism, which is not how a lot of people use it. A lot of people either add comments, to a retweet or like to have their face on the retweet (I am retweeting this etc) so from a UX POV their is now a distinct break in the twitter site, and the RT usage is now forced upon the users (in my opinion curtailing the evolution of this emergent behaviour) unless they simply type RT into a reply and add comment - so now we have two forms of retweet neither quite right. Currently this Retweet API seems like a favoriting system, combined with publishing but there is a favoriting system already in place which needs some loving and can be used as "vote for" without the publish. I wonder if some of this is an optimisation on Twitters end, so to save duplicating identical tweet (from a retweet) the status text is shared amongst all the receivers of retweet. Paul 2009/8/17 Chris Babcock <cbabc...@asciiking.com> > > On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 02:43:50 -0700 (PDT) > janole <s...@mobileways.de> wrote: > > > If you just don't agree with a tweet and want to express it via a > > retweet, how can you do so with the proposed API? Seems to be > > impossible or am I missing something? > > The new retweet API does not circumvent any of the current methods of > expression. The only thing that it does is provide a method for > verbatim retweets that is appropriate on social, semantic and data > storage levels. It doesn't appear to be designed to handled "value > added" retweets. There's no reason that it should be. That mode of > expression is already served well enough by emergent behavior > surrounding the current API. Value added re-expression is an evolving > part of the Twitter experience. Codifying the current meme for that > expression would be counter-productive. This API is not attempting to > do that. It's only a provision for a meaningful, trackable, acceptable > "me too" message. > > So to discuss a post with which a user disagrees, the retweet mechanism > would *not* be used. That is a value added expression that would be best > served by linking or replying, depending on the scope of the > disagreement. > > Chris >
