Twitter relents on @reply rebellion

Replacement system labelled "absolute disaster"

14 May 2009 9:53 GMT / By Duncan Geere

As predicted by Pocket-lint, Twitter has rolled back the changes it made to the way replies function on the popular micro-blogging site. There was user outcry after the company removed a previously available feature to see replies to people that you weren't following.

In a blog post, founder Biz Stone explains that the reasons behind the change were more technical than social: "It didn't scale and even if we rebuilt it, the feature was blunt".

As a temporary solution, the company has changed the way things work so that: "any updates beginning with @username (that are not explicitly created by clicking on the reply icon) will be seen by everyone following that account".

You might have to read that more than once to understand it. Basically, if you click the "Reply" button, then the reply will just go to those people following both accounts. If you begin a message with @username but don't use the "Reply" button, then it will go to everyone following you.

Stone says that the company is also working on a new feature that will give users more control over the tweets they see from people that they follow. Some have speculated that this could be the anticipated "groups" feature.

Meanwhile, bloggers aren't happy with the solution. Techcrunch has labelled the situation "an absolute disaster" and ReadWriteWeb comments: "Oh, for the simpler days of being a Twitter user - like yesterday morning".

It's also upsetting users that didn't want their feeds clogged up with replies to users that they're not following: "F***ing great. Twitter has decided to #fixreplies by doing the exact opposite. So the 98% of us who don't want irrelevant @s now get them", says one user, Chris Applegate, quoted in the Guardian.

Full tags

Software, Websites, Twitter, Social networking