Definition: Retweets

Since one of the things the Twitalyzer is actively tracking and scoring against is “retweeting” or the passing along of messages in Twitter we thought it would be a good idea to outline pretty clearly what we count as a retweet and what we will likely miss. Things we are looking for in your updates are:

• The use of “RT” or “rt” followed by someone’s proper Twitter username (e.g., “RT @erictpeterson”)
• The use of “RETWEET” or “retweet” followed by someone’s proper Twitter username (e.g., “Retweet @jowyang”)
• The use of “R/T” or “r/t” followed by someone’s proper Twitter username (e.g., “r/t @guykawasaki”)
• The use of “VIA” or “via” followed by someone’s proper Twitter username (e.g., “via @jowyang”)

If you have a colon (“:”) in between your retweet signifier and the Twitter users proper username that is fine. But if you don’t use one of these styles and especially if you don’t properly refer to the Twitter user, the retweet will not be scored. Here are some examples of things we do not count as retweets:

• “retweet Eric Peterson”
• “RT the new york times”
• “via http://www.is.gd/1234”

(There are many more examples of stuff that will fail.) In general, if you stick to the most parsimonious use of retweet, “RT @username”, you will be fine. If this is confusing for you, or you hate it, or hate us for making things work this way, please write us and let’s talk about it.