Twitter has been rolling out new features for its web interface to small groups to get feedback and then full roll out. It did this with Twitter Lists. Over the weekend, I noticed that Twitter's beta retweet feature was available on my account and played around with it.
Brian Solis picks out what's interesting about it.
The new retweet feature is particularly interesting as it organizes your experience directly at Twitter.com much in the same way third-party clients such as Tweetdeck and Seesmic have offered all along. Unlike these desktop applications however, Twitter.com remains as the pervasive interface for engaging on Twitter. For example, your lists, real-time search results, DMs, Twitter stream, and now retweets are key pillars to the personal experience at Twitter.com. For most users, the new retweet functionality, combined with important, cached searches (including your username), the need to stray from Twitter's online hub begins to dissipate.
Woodsy Owl: Give A Hoot, Don't Retweet Pollute!
The new feature makes re-tweeting a single step versus a two-step process. What I don't like about it is that I can't add my own two cents about Tweet. By making so easy to retweet messages will this cause an explosion of too much information on Twitter?
I thought about Woodsy Owl. Woodsy has been USDA Forest Service's environmental champion since 1970, and is most recognized for his wise request, "Give a hoot. Don't Pollute." That was before we had to deal with the amount of digital information we deal with daily from our email, Twitter, and social streams.
And with more retweets, the more likely it is that you will see duplicate retweets. This points to the need for more filters better at filtering that our human brains or relying on changes of behavior. Louis Gray recently reviewed a new product under development, called Cadmus. It filters your real time streams to group similar posts in your feeds to reduce the noise. The service currently works on your Twitter account, your FriendFeed account, or on any number of blogs you add. You can also add many RSS feeds at once via OPML.
This is on my list for 2010, to take a deeper dive in filtering tools. Maybe I'm just behind on getting fluent on filtering tools and thus finding the duplication annoying.
What filtering tools are you using to avoid information overload or "too much retweeting"?