[Thinking about it here, I guess I'm a modern Twitter user equivalent to a caveman -- I've never used Twitter search, never retweeted anything (excluding MacHeist), never adapted terms like tweeps, never participated (as far as I can recall) in any of the Twitter memes and never used any external Twitter related sites beyond Twitpic, yet consider myself an active Twitter user. Hm.]

As far as RT goes, I’d guess the original concept was to use it when quoting another twitter user through their tweet. And though I can think of very few uses for this beyond sharing a holiday joke, there are no doubt places where a quote is appropriate. Thing is, Twitter users never use it in this capacity anymore; these days, it’s just used for passing on a link on or pointing out something the author thought was cool or found amusing… There is no reason for these things to be reposted as such; in my eyes, it’s really being used in place of the favorites feature or in place of having to write a couple words. Things like “RT @rotassator: Can anyone here handle a bike like this? http://tr.im/jsYh” (@RedheadRev) or “RT @ace_frehley: oh and a very happy earth day to all…” (@marthamargiotta) are what’s frequently found these days, and they’re absolutely retarded. If you want to share a link, copy the link, tell your followers about it/why they should check it out and add (via @username) at the end! If you want to tell your followers something, then just say it in your own words! There is absolutely no need to repeat mundane things like this, and in such a fashion; followers are following you, not these other random people. They want to hear what you have to say and see your shared ideas, not theirs. And on that note, if they are following the other random person as well, they’re then subjected to the same tweet twice (or more)… What’s interesting in that? Being subject to this kind of junk is what’s annoying.

Gotta say, I don’t care much for the theme. The color, in particular, is awful, but the index layout isn’t too hot either. But whatever, finding a good WordPress theme is pretty hard these days. At least this one is usable.

Everything you said and more is exactly why I switched. I agree that there has been an onslaught of negativity about other clients since Tweetie’s release, but hey, who’s fault is that? Obviously Tweetie is a better product. So, I give kudos to atebits for that. They’ve showed us all what a Twitter client should be; they’ve shown us what we were missing.

On the issue of RT, Alex, you want independent thought and creativity in 140 characters or less? And Andre, how in God’s name is it an annoying practice? I love spreading good tweets around. I don’t care either way how it’s done to be honest, but “RT” seems to be the more used option, and it uses less characters.

Oh, what do you guys think of the new theme?

I still fail to see any major improvements over Twitterrific, however. It lacks search, separated lists for @replies and DMs, and the ability to load older tweets, but do you really need anything else? But maybe I’m just sore at all the negativity aimed at Twitterrific as a result of Tweetie’s release…

The ‘via’ syntax on the other hand encourages someone to creatively reuse the content or link that they’re re-using from another person because, by name alone, they’re not ‘retweeting’ someone’s entire post but citing part of their work; in exactly the same way a quote is handled in any other written work.