It’s like family Thanksgiving dinner all over again.

December 9, 2009 | Filed Under Social Media 

This whole retweet feature recently implemented by twitter has turned my twitter experience into a family reunion style meeting full of strangers and awkward thoughts of “Umm… who invited you again?” I guess I see my little stream of those I follow as my own little dysfunctional family. It’s weird seeing strange people that I’m not sure I like, in my family stream. And now, its even managed to invade my iphone apps.

The good news? There’s a way to turn it off. How? Well… let me show you. My example is brought to you by my friend Steve Plunkett who was wonderful enough to play along. Lisa Barone brings her own personal flare to MandaOtto.com (thanks Lisa).

Here you see a retweet from someone I am not following, thrown into my stream by my friend Steve. I mouse over his name here and click to be taken to his profile where I notice this:

After hitting the green routating arrows you see:

And now my stream is free of said retweet.

VOILA! Problem solved right? Well… sorta. This means that I’ll no longer see your retweets. Now, I know what you’re thinking and yes, I’m pulling out my woman-card, “I like them but I don’t LIKE THEM, like them.”

Here the deal: Sometimes, I like getting retweets. I just don’t care for the new addition of the avatars associated with the retweets. Why? Well because I pick my followers carefully. If I wanted to see other people in my stream I’d just go all follow-happy on everyone. I see the old fashion RTs as a sort of pre-approval of sorts; my friend’s way of saying, “this information might be of interest but it’s up to you to follow through with a RT or even a follow back.”

Considering the power retweets have always had on our little niche, this could become a really big hurdle to overcome. Fortunately, we are creatures of adaption. This is why many of us love this industry.

Crap works. Crap breaks/changes. We adapt. Learn the system. Monetize Put it to good use. Rinse. Repeat.

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