The Science Of ReTweets

Here's a piece of classic Social Media analysis (presentation and video interview) from Dan Zarrella covering the spread-ability, readability and currency of the ReTweet. There'll be loads of this kind of thing on the DGR wiki in due course - just thought you'd like to see some context to the DGR project.

More comments about his report from Dan on his blog.

The Science Of ReTweets

View more presentations from Dan Zarrella.

For a more academic review of the Retweet, "Tweet, Tweet, Retweet: Conversational Aspects of Retweeting on Twitter" by Danah Boyd and friends, is a worthwhile read. It's currently only a draft, but it already contains gems such as:

Retweeting brings new people into a particular thread, inviting them to engage without directly addressing them. In this article, we argue that, as with link-based blogging [13], retweeting can be understood both as a form of information diffusion and as a means of participating in a diffuse conversation. Spreading tweets is not simply to get messages out to new audiences, but also to validate and engage with others.

And on the issue of shifting contexts:

Not all retweets are an accurate portrayal of the original message. When people edit content to retweet, they may alter the meaning of the original. Even when the content was not altered, taking a tweet out of context can give it a life of its own.

Here's the full draft text by Boyd and co. Enjoy.

Tweet Tweet Retweet by Danah Boyd

View more documents from David Bausola.