I was at a meeting today where someone asked me what was going on with Twitter replies and were they broken? So I thought maybe some folks hadn’t read the 50 other blog posts out there and I should mention it as well.

Let’s start off with the basics.  Up until yesterday, there was an option in your Twitter Settings that allowed you to see @replies from people you follow to people you don’t follow.

Example:

I follow @twitterX.

I don’t follow @twitterY.

The following tweet is sent by @twitterX.

@TwitterY Have you seen the new X-Men movie?

In my settings, I could select to see that tweet, even though I don’t follow @twitterY.  Now, because I don’t follow @twitterY, I can’t see that tweet even thought I follow @twitterX.

There’s more.  There are also mentions, a new term to Twitter that is used inconsistently.

Example:

@twitterX sends this tweet:

I went to see X-Men with @twitterY last night.

I can still see that tweet no matter what because it’s not a reply, it’s a mention. A reply is when the tweet begins with @username.  A mention is embedded in the tweet.

It’s all pretty silly, yes?

So Twitter has turned off the ability to see @replies to people you are not following from people you are. I’m actually pretty sad about this. Like many other power users, I tended to use that function to see who else my friends were talking to. From there, I’d check out this new person’s profile and in many cases, follow them myself. After all, friends of my friends could be my friends as well, given the opportunity.

Twitter’s original blog post on this pretty much explained that most people didn’t want to see this “undesirable and confusing option,” so they removed it. What? Really? If it’s that confusing, move it to an Advanced Settings option, but  don’t remove it.

After a lot of hullabaloo and a busy #fixreplies tag on Twitter, they came back with a new response. This time they’re saying that they removed the setting because of engineering issues.

The engineering team reminded me that there were serious technical reasons why that setting had to go or be entirely rebuilt—it wouldn’t have lasted long even if we thought it was the best thing ever. Nevertheless, it’s amazing to wake up and see all the tweets about this change.

I don’t really know how much I believe this reasoning or if it’s just duck-and-cover. Needless to say, I’m sure it’s all been a mini-nightmare for the folks at Twitter.

As they said over at TechCrunch, removing the setting is just dumbing down the already simple system. I’ve said it a hundred times – Twitter does not explain itself well. It has lousy help (Get Satisfaction isn’t satifying to Internet rookies) and has depended on the smarts of early adopters until recently. Now with the Oprah/Ellen/Ashton influx, their lack of good support tools – and good explanations for their tools – is really coming to light. So here is my personal plea to the folks at Twitter:

Dear Twitter:

I’m a tech writer and instructional designer. I love your system but I also have to offer classes on how to use your system. For people like my mom or my grandma, your system isn’t intuitive. It’s intimidating. You don’t explain anything and expect folks to figure it all out by themselves. Some people just aren’t there yet – we’re not all early adopters, you know.

Make your Help system actually Helpful, using, oh I don’t know, a program that supports HELP. Have someone write it. Offer online tutorials. eLearning is inexpensive (I know this because I design it).  When they sign up, offer people a quick optional lesson on getting the most out of your system. Offer them quick optional tutorials on how to set up their account, including those confusing and “undesirable” settings. Things are only confusing when they aren’t explained properly.

I’ve been behind you – an avid user with multiple accounts – since the beginning. I support you and evangelize your system to everyone I know. So please, make it easy for all those non-Internet-savvy folks out there to understand your system, and prove my support was justified.

Thanks!

Michelle
@writetechnology

So those are just my two cents. Do I think that all the hullabaloo today was really necessary? Well, no. But I do think it points out again a shortcoming in Twitter’s documentation/help/training. And the fact that they didn’t recover well from the bad publicity.

Luckily, it’s a Web 2.0 world and we all have short attention spans. Maybe it will all blow over tomorrow.

Your thoughts?

Update: Twitter’s response (and mine)

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Sites: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

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