Does reading what you retweet matter? | Joseph Stashko Does reading what you retweet matter? | Thoughts on the media

In the media, a select few are followed on Twitter by thousands because they’re deemed to have expertise in some area or just have a useful and entertaining online presence.

Though I wouldn’t go so far as to say these people act as a hegemony, people like Paul Bradshaw, Jay Rosen and Jeff Jarvis have people waiting on their every word, waiting to see what new bit of information they’ll come up with or link to. What this inevitably means is that when a Twitter institution (any of the previously mentioned or say, Poynter, journalism.co.uk or Nieman Lab) posts something new it’s instantly subject to a flurry of retweets within a short space of time, as well as in the days after.

Unfortunately if you follow people within a very specific area of interest you are inevitably faced with the same link appearing in your feed over and over again. Irritating but unavoidable and understandable.

So why do I think you should read what you retweet? Because all too often, I don’t think people do. I think some people retweet things because they’re seeking a boost in popularity, hoping that other people will follow suit and follow them due to their “recommendation”. I think there’s also a herd mentality of following what is deemed to be quality content and what one really believes to be quality content.

Is it ok to pass on information without reading it? Is a retweet an endorsement, or simply a statement of “here’s something to read”? I think the answer can be found by what you think Twitter is for, which broadly falls into two camps.

It’s an information provider. Twitter themselves don’t believe it to be a social network. Kevin Thau, Twitter’s VP for business and corporate development said that “Twitter is for news. Twitter is for content. Twitter is for information”. If you believe in this, then retweet away at your hearts content. There’s no need to read what you’re reposting, because in this case the user acts as a middle man between the source and the extended audience that’s gained by the retweet. It’s just passing on the flow of information.

Or, you think Twitter is a recommendation service. This is the side I tend to lead towards more. Which Twitter streams do I find interesting? Whose links am I likely to click? Not automated ones from news organisations. Blogs, photos and videos posted by more human users are what I’m drawn to. And if they preface a link to a Guardian article with “This is a great article because it addresses x and x” then I’m more likely to use it. Retweeting without reading is baffling to me. It’s like handing someone a book saying “this is very good. I haven’t read it, but the author is famous, so it must be good”.

Personal recommendation is the crux of an online social service. Without it, Twitter would more or less be an RSS feed, albeit with marginally more personality. It’s one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed using Goodreads so much since I signed up. I can see what all my friends are reading, why they chose to read it, and what they thought of the book afterwards. It’s a tangible recommendation service and it allows me think about what books I’d like to read next.

The more people you follow on Twitter, the more noise there is. So personalities actually shine through. I don’t want to read a link that sounds like it was posted by a machine. I want to see people, and characters. Otherwise, we’re in danger of losing sight of what the point of it all is.

via josephstashko.com

Posted via email from Brian's posterous