Twitter recently changed how the re-tweet feature works. Technically they added the feature to the core of Twitter where it had been an ad hoc feature of many of the clients. But, I will let you read all about it on Biz and Evan‘s blogs.

I want to discuss a problem this creates, propose a two-step solution, and solicit your help getting the word out.

Problem:

• When you re-tweet someone you often add a comment to the tweet. The new way of re-tweeting does not allow this. I understand why they did this and agree with their logic, but we still need a solution.

Solution Step 1:

• Add a comment on the re-tweet as a separate tweet.

Example:

• @giddytab says, “A friend’s 3YO just sneezed a piece of apple up into her nose cavity.”
• I re-tweet and then add a second tweet that says, “@giddytab, Ouch that sounds painful.”

Pros of this solution:

• Original author gets to see who re-tweeted and can easily find replies to their tweet.
• Original author can tell which tweet you are replying to even if you are replying hours later.
• Your readers will be able to see what you are commenting on even if they do not follow the person you are replying to.

Missing feature: Reply to Post

• Currently you can reply to another twitter user by typing @ and their username, but when you do it it sometimes hard to tell which tweet you are replying to.
• Step 1 would help in some cases but we can solve all cases and make the proposed solution work better by adding Steps 2 and 3.

Solution Step 2:

• Start using @ and the status in addition to @username (both for now, but hopefully only one later)
  • Example: @giddytab @54321234 Ouch that sounds painful.

Solution Step 3: This step needs to be done by Twitter and the clients.

• I suggest that Twitter make it so that users will see @status-number as a reply to them without the @username being required so that we can keep those tweets short.
  • They could still show the username online and on client. It would just help keep the tweets short.
  • Yes, I realize this kind of exists already but it does not work well and an explicit reply to post would really help.
• I also suggest that Twitter group those replies to specific tweets together with the original tweets on twitter.com and in the API

I need your help with a few things:

• First, will you tweet this idea? You can just link to this post or you can actually discuss the idea on twitter and your own blog.
• Then if you have additional (or alternative) ideas, would you comment here so we can discuss?
• Then will you help me request that the reply to post feature be added? You can send tweets to @biz and @ev

Thanks!