Friends,
Hope most of you aware of the fact that Twitter began to filter out the regular/traditional re-tweeting (RTing) method that contains “RT @username” in the tweets from the integrated real-time and hash-tag click throuh (#) search results by yesterday (Mar 19, 2010) onwards. But not from the Twitter Search though!
Read more about this issue HERE.
Now let me post couple of pictures to clarify/compare the search results:
Search term: #jieber 
(aka Bustin Jieber, trending now and till eternity!)
1. Integrated Twitter Search (and or direct clicking on hash-tags) Result – shows no tweet with “RT @username” mentions:
2. Regular Twitter Search at search.twitter.com Result – shows tweets with RT @username mentions:
So with the above pictures, you can see clearly what is twitter doing at the moment with the RT @ mentions. Simply pathetic and outrageous. Potentially kills our reach to connect with other people by filtering the RT @ mentions from integrated real-time search results as well as hash-tag click through.
But… Why the heck they are doing this?
1. To promote their official Retweet function a boost (as most of the people ignore it due to these many problems.)
2. It seems like a deliberate ploy against the twitter client application developers (I’m not sure, May be!.)
Official replies about this ongoing controversy by Charles – Twitter employee for the UX support team:
a) Reply to @Twitter_Tips The results in integrated search simply include ‘exclude:retweets’ automatically. Search.twitter does not do this. (Status Link) // Problem confirmed!
b) Reply to @RayBeckerman RTs are usually a lot of noise in search results. Excluding them makes the results cleaner and (in most cases) better. (Status Link) // All of the sudden!
c) Reply to @RayBeckerman We are constantly improving our algorithms and search quality. We will definitely take your concerns to heart for the future. (Status Link) // May take hours to years, fingers crossed!
So what can you do now to force Twitter to fix this issue?
1. You can file a support ticket/request HERE and let them know your concerns strongly.
2. Sign a twitter petition (aka Twitition) HERE (Created by @RayBeckerman) – but only 84 signatures so far. Not enough. Need more to caught Twitter’s eye.
By the way, some blog posts mentioned few updates that : Twitter removed the “RT” filter from searches and back to normal. Unfortunately, it ain’t true! (partially.) I took the above screenshots around 10.45 PM (IST), May 20, 2010.
Quick Fix:
Till Twitter resolves the problem, whenever you’re re-tweeting someone’s tweet, instead of RT @username, USE either Via @username (or) By @username (or) anything meaningful other than RT @username (or) even vanilla @ mention at the end of the tweet. It should work and the results can be seen through integrated real-time search an hash-tag click through.
Updates whenever possible…
* Twitter Responded to TheNextWeb query – More Details ( Thanks to Jean-Luc Raymond, Tony Stevens, Glen D. Gilmore and Twitter_Tips for the headsup)
* Update: May 21, 2010 – 10 AM (IST) – Well, still the http://search.twitter.com/ -results are showing the tweets with RT @username mentions. Not the twitter integrated real-time search as well as the hash-tag click through though (while you’re logging in). Try the latest trending topic “#whywebrokeup” search to see the different results:
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23whywebrokeup
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23whywebrokeup
Update: May 26, 2010 (12:28 AM)
It seems like that twitter lifted the “RT” filter from the integrated real-time as well as the hash-tag click through search. But not sure!
While testing current trending topic, #towelday… i am able to see RT @ in both search options. Try for yourself:
http://twitter.com/search?q=%23towelday
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23towelday
Hash-tag search RT @ mentions are appearing… picture proof:
If this trend continues… we can use RT @ mentions again! Will update if any conflict occur.
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To some extent, it makes sense because RTs are repetition most of the time.
Thanks Punit for dropping by. RTs are more prominent than regular tweets IMO as it tends to make your content to reach many in very little time. So blocking it from the integrated real-time search as well as the hash-tag click-through search makes what people fume and that too without any announcement.