»I was following the twitter trend #fixtwitter today and watched as everyone griped about not being able to see when people they were following were responding to users they were not following. For example:
* @brandon, @jimmy and @someotherguy are on twitter.
* @brandon is following @jimmy but NOT @someotherguy
* If @jimmy replies to @someotherguy, it will not show up in @brandon’s twitter feed.
…which totally sucks because that is how a lot of us meet new people. By watching how our friends interact with their connections, we have an opportunity to make new connections. However, there are ways for us to work around this whole thing. For one, you can put ANY text at the beginning of the tweet. For instance, if I reply like this:
!! @someotherguy I am replying to your tweet
…then the people following me will see that tweet even if they don’t follow @someotherguy. In my opinion- that’s still a bunch of BS. So what about making this bug into a feature? What have we been looking for in twitter clients and the like? Uhhh….groups.
Say I want to start a group that only tweets about beta release software, but I don’t want to clutter up my non-geeky friends’ twitter feed. Now all I have to do is create a twitter account and start each beta release group related tweet with a reply to the account I just created. My friends won’t be bothered by it as long as they’re not following my group account, and all the group members need to do is follow the group account. You followin’ me, camera guy? You could even go so far as to set up a saved search on something like tweetdeck, tweetie or any other client that uses saved searches.
What do you think of this idea? I’m really curious to see what you guys think is cooler/more important: Fixing the @reply “problem” or being able to finally use twitter groups? Use the twitter comments, disqus comments, tumblr answer or just scream the text of this post in a crowded area. I’d suggest one of the first two though. The last one will probably cause you lose your voice…. and maybe some friends.
