November 10th, 2009
Chris Messina, founding father of the the ever-popular (and sometimes not) Hashtag, has proposed a few more syntax specific ways of doing things on Twitter. Chris is suggesting that we use /via instead of (via @cdevroe), /by for quote credits, and /cc for carbon-copying messages to specific people on Twitter.
Chris gives good examples for each of his suggestions so if you have no idea what any of the above means I suggest reading his post.
I like these suggestions but I don’t believe /via will hold up well. RT @username may end up going away with Twitter’s new Retweet feature rolling out. And typically /via @username would be used in those circumstances. I could be wrong though.
It’s a good point. Any microsyntax has to prove its worth through use and adoption over time, not by merely being declared.
I’ve been using /via for a few weeks now and find it works for me. It’s one-part style, one-party convention, just to make it easy on myself when I want to cite someone else as a source. Retweeting will no doubt change the dynamics of Twitter, and it’ll be interesting to see in what ways.
Perhaps RT and /via go away — I’m not entirely sure. But like I said in my post, /via differs from RT in an important way: rather than just reposting what someone else said (the proverbial “forward” activity from email), /via is more about citing a source but adding your own commentary.
Anywho, we’ll see if slashtags take off — I’m going to use them, but it certainly won’t effect me one way or the other if no one else does!
“/via is more about citing a source but adding your own commentary” – I like that. Thanks for the clarification (even if it was my own oversight).
However, I do think it would effect you if many started using them. Perhaps they’d be adopted as conventions that Twitter promotes and even uses for future features. Surely that’d effect you.
Thanks Chris.