On Twitter, the mob may always rule

Every time Facebook changes anything, an army of Facebook users spend the day whining and becoming fans of "I'm Hating Facebook's New Thing." Likewise, Twitter is enough of a social-media powerhouse that twits will turn on their creators for any minor changes in their tweetdom. Like in August, when Twitter decided to try and formalize the retweet function (a user-invented system) with a plan to integrate it into the interface—but without letting people add extra commentary to their RTs. The mob rose up, and the #SaveReTweets hashtag was born. Now, Wired magazine takes a closer look at that Twitter-tweak freakout and what it means for the brand in the future, along with some analysis of how social-media applications might try to guard against this kind of mob rule. Stick around for page 2's handy infographic that includes such milestones as Kutcher's war with CNN and P. Diddy's terrifying tantric sex updates. (Oh no, he didn't? Oh yes, he did.)

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

November 6, 2009 in News and Analysis | Permalink