• @Twitter - Did You Try the Facebook Gig?

    @Twitter - Did You Try the Facebook Gig?

    Techtree News Staff, May 15, 2009 1045 hrs IST

    Twitter removed a vital feature considering it will be less used and less vital

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Twitter, the popular micro-blogging site, recently made changes in its replies feature which backfired after a wave of protest from across the globe. A lot of Twitter users are still discovering the fact that Twitter is listing @replies from updates carrying @UserName mentioned at the start of the update. If the @UserName is mentioned anywhere else, it won't be displayed in the respective user's timeline.


 




Back in March, Facebook underwent a facelift and made it similar to Twitter. Before the implementation, Mark Zuckerberg himself created a Twitter account and many believe that the changes made to the interface were Twitter-like. These changes also angered Facebook users. 


Twitter had earlier mentioned changes to be implemented in replies by updating the Notices option in the Settings. Basically, Twitter had removed the "@Replies from everybody" option. This resulted in halfway communication since users get to see replies only from the people they were following.


Following that, Twitter users got to see the change in the @replies sent to them. However, the user base reacted differently than what folks at Twitter anticipated. The reaction from user has been so strong that "#fixreplies" topic has been trending search till date. Apart from that many were using letters or characters before @replies as a work around. 


Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, updated through his account:



Reading people's thoughts on the replies issue. We're considering alternatives. Thanks for your feedback.


Blogosphere ridiculed that Williams tried Zuckerberg gig. First throwing up a change and then rolling it back when after a negative. This however wasn't the case here.


Twitter explained that '@Replies from everybody' feature was removed to avoid confusion as well as for technical reasons. In the latest post, Twitter mentioned details about removal of feature since it was blunt and wouldn't scale even if they rebuilt it.



However, Twitter will have two major changes;


1. Everyone following a particular account will be able to see the updates starting @username. So, though the removed feature won't be restored, it will be replaced by an alternative.


2. Users will get more control over the updates they get to see from their followers but it will take a while to be rolled out.


Early today, Twitter suffered from timeline freezing issues which was resolved. Whatever changes the Twitter team implements, it would be closely watched by its users.

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