UPDATE: Six months after the below was written, the kind folks at Twitter, Inc. changed their policies on replies, per here, now calling them mentions. As such, the following is moot. If you’d like to read about it, feel free.
Regardless how you use Twitter, if you have something to say in 140 characters or less, your message (or tweet) is read by anyone following you at that moment in time or anyone watching the public timeline of 3+ million users.
- Any message beginning with text enters the public timeline and is indexed by search engines.
- Any message beginning with an @ sign is a reply, also enters the timeline and is indexed.
- Any message beginning with a D is a direct message to one person. DMs are private, do not enter the timeline, and are not indexed.
For instance, here is my last tweet:
Do you see how I referenced @jbernoff at the end of the tweet? I was not replying to him, but I placed an @ sign there so anyone following me or viewing the public timeline (or searching the public timeline for keywords, e.g. “corporate blog” or “peer” or “jbernoff”) would see it, could click to Josh’s Twitter profile, and opt to follow him.
Had I begun the tweet with @jbernoff, he would see my message appear in his @replies stream. Every Twitter desktop and mobile client, along with the twitter.com web interface, provides a default @replies column so people can see messages directed at them.
But here’s the kicker: Despite my using @jbernoff in that above tweet, it won’t appear in Josh’s @replies column for the single reason I did not begin the tweet with his username. Does that make sense?
Examples to prove my point
Here is a screen shot from my @replies stream on twitter.com:
And here are the same tweets from Twhirl, a Windows desktop client:
What would happen if someone tweeted me but did not put @ariherzog in the front of the message?
Check out what happens when I type in my username at Twitter Search:
Disregarding the tweet I broadcasted, you can see the Twhirl and generic Twitter.com replies from Leah Jones and RouteNote, but you also see something from Andrea Zak, not unlike what I tweeted with Josh Bernoff.
Here’s the same screen shot with a custom search query (ariherzog OR ariwriter) in TweetDeck, my primary means of watching tweets:
You can continue using Twitter.com or Twhirl or any other application you want for viewing replies that people send you, but be aware that you’re only seeing half the truth. Also keep in mind that if someone sends out a group tweet, e.g. several @ usernames in a row, only the first username sees it in his @replies stream.
Echoing my post title above, Twitter @replies are stupid; and their developers should find some way of tweaking the @replies feature!
It is for this reason I strongly suggest everyone either create customized search query strings within Twitter Search, TweetScan, or TweetBeep; or do what I do and set up a custom search query in TweetDeck.
Any questions? Poke me a comment below or tweet me!
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Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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{ 24 comments }
hmmmm…so I take that that’s why you’ve never responded to any of my replies
Thanks for setting this straight, Ari. I never knew.
marc´s last blog post..10 quick tips to remember when pitching the client
It depends on the client you’re using. Twhirl OCCASIONALLY will display replies that don’t begin with your name. Tweetdeck will display them no matter where they are. I honestly think the Twitter folks deliberately turn it off most of the time, but not all of the time, to minimize server hits, as I swear I see it from time to time.
Todd Van Hoosear´s last blog post..Lessons from social media marketing failures (and successes)
A word about @s to other people:
You should let people know that in their settings for their timeline they can choose to see, or not see, messages beginning with @uername for other people In other words, you can choose to turn off all @s for other people in order to cut down on chatter not meant for you.
As you mentioned here, you will still see @s that are not at the start of the text string in your timeline.
Kami Huyse´s last blog post..Case Study: Cause Marketing for Darfur, the Viral Spread of a Call to Action
Hi Ari – This is great info. I had no idea that @ replies did or didn’t show up in different tools used to access. I’ve been using twitter consistently since last summer so I never really noticed.
Kim Woodbridge´s last blog post..(Anti) Social-Lists 12/7/08
I did the “self search” column on TweetDeck to have my Tweet & their replies in the same column. I saw that Guy Kawasaki did that on a screenshot he had on his blog. I think the guys at TweetDeck have tried to pick up the in message replies and put them as replies even if Twitter doesn’t (I could be wrong).
Ryan´s last blog post..Back to the Old School
Todd, I use Twhirl and I reliably get @replies regardless of where the @username is.
You are saying that if the @person is not at the beginning, they don’t see it in the replies section? That SUCKS.
Jason Alba´s last blog post..LinkedIn! LinkedIn! LinkedIn!
Like Steve, I use Twhirl and I get them. Are you saying that I may not be receiving them all?
Tom Volkar / Delightful Work´s last blog post..Double Your Income Next Year
I didn’t know that about replies either. So if you are replying to two people, only the first person in the list would get it? That’s no fun. I liked the idea of using the @someone at the end, that way people wouldn’t skip past a tweet, assuming it is just for one person, and the person you want to read it most definitely won’t miss it in the mix.
~ Kristi
Kikolani | Poetry, Photography, Blogging Tips´s last blog post..Photos Taken with my LG CU920
Hmm… I can say with confidence that Twhirl is VERY inconsistent in picking up @replies that do not start with my Twitter name. I cross-check with Tweetdeck and Monitter and get different results. Glad it works for other folks.
Todd Van Hoosear´s last blog post..Lessons from social media marketing failures (and successes)
Darren Rowse writes a great article on Twitter’s use of @ replies
http://www.twitip.com/twitter-as-dinner-conversation-a-guide-to-using-replies/
@Harold: I didn’t? We’ll have to fix that!
@Marc, @Kim: Now you know and can share the knowledge!
@Todd: Thanks for sharing your knowledge with others. I used to use Twhirl nonstop until I shifted to TweetDeck. While TweetDeck’s default @replies column does show your name wherever it is, I created a search column to reduce the need for tweetbeep alerts when someone tweeted my url (or tried to tweet me at ariwriter).
@Kami: Thanks for that reminder. Forgot about it!
@Ryan: Guy had turned me onto TweetDeck, too. After seeing one too many tweets about it, I checked it out.
@Steve, @Tom: Weird.
@Jason: At least it’s better than LinkedIn which doesn’t allow message sharing as easily.
@Kristi: Twitter was never set up for group tweeting; remember, it’s birth was intertwining SMS chat with Instant Messaging. In fact, according to the Twitter blog link I included near the top of the post, @replies were added in after the service started.
@Thao Thanks for the TwiTip link. And Chuck Westbrook wrote that, not Darren.
I use Twhirl most of the time, and leave it on in the morning so that it can capture some (or most) of my @ replies. Annoying, I know. But oh well what can I do.
Raul´s last blog post..Jonathon Narvey in the middle of a controversy!
Never gave it a thought. I always use twhirl and never noticed this. Thanks for sharing this valuable information.
Rajeev Edmonds´s last blog post..MicroBlogging: Twhirl Guide For Beginners – Part 1
I use Tweetdeck, and when my name has been included in mass @replies, I have seen it in my @section.
I understand there is room for error with the system they have. Many new people don’t know the procedures from the beginning and could lose out. also just simple human error can lose out on things. Should be tweaked by them somehow.
Random questions to everyone, but as great as Twitter is, isn’t it really just one large community chat room? I grew up on chat rooms and those were the big deal. Other than specifically following someone, what’s the real diff. And you may have been able to do that on chat rooms, I don’t remember.
Well put! I guess I sort of knew that, because I do occasionally summize (okay, twitter search) myself, but I never realized what the precise parameters were…I sort of thought twitter was just missing some of the @ replies.
I also search my name without the “c” in the middle sometimes, as people are wont to leave it out!
Jillian C. York´s last blog post..Offensive album covers, over the years
I had no idea about the differences in placement of the @ symbol. Very good to know…thanks for sharing Ari (and commenters)
Ari,
Someone explained the @replies to me in the twitterstream. I’ve only had two tweets in recent months that show up in searches but not in my @replies.
What I’ve found useful about the format (which doesn’t counter your critique) is that TwitterTools (by an option) and the Twitter FaceBook application (automatically) seem to ignore all @replies that start with the @ sign.
Gib´s last blog post..See Resume, See Door, See Applicant Run
Ari,
I read this once already and thought about it, then looked at it again because you sent it to someone with an @ msg that I saw.
Kami’s advice about cutting out the @ replies to other people you’re not also following from your stream does cut down on what you see, if that’s your goal.
However, I’ve changed my settings to see the @ msgs to others in order to spot interesting new people to follow. In this sense the @ msg serves like a mini-reference/referral source.
I’ve also started using the @ msg to introduce myself to people when I start following them, with something about an interest in common or how I found them (e.g. “Found you thx to @ariherzog”). This gets at least some of the relationships rolling right away and giving us both more value. There’s also some utility to it for sorting people into groups in TweetDeck, if I ever get around to finishing THAT project–I’ll be able to read my own msgs to remember something about the person without looking at each profile.
I have an unscientific sense that thanks to the introduction, those people who have far more followers than people they follow are more likely to give me a reciprocal follow because I bothered to introduce myself. I wish people who follow me would do the same–I look at their profiles and with some, I wonder what it was in my tweets that interests them.
–barb
Barb Chamberlain´s last blog post..Snow Day
from AriWriter, how @ Replies Work on Twitter and Why It’s Stupid [link to post] I’m learning nu things about twitter every day
– http://twitter.com/cottageantiques/statuses/1075923115
– Posted using Chat Catcher
I use Tweet Grid – http://tweetgrid.com – a lot because it’s a nice and easy browser-based system, and that picks up everything, regardless of placement in the message. It’s how I keep track of conversations as well as hashtag messages.
Danny Brown´s last blog post..Koodo Mobile – Does “So Bad It’s Good” Work?
This is the reason I miss the ‘track’ feature in twitter! I used to track my username so I’d get the messages in which I was referenced. Now I suppose you could subscribe to an RSS feed of a search of your screen name, but that’s much less convenient
Andrea Hill´s last blog post..Should you use full-text or summary articles in your RSS feed?
“But here’s the kicker: Despite my using @jbernoff in that above tweet, it won’t appear in Josh’s @replies column for the single reason I did not begin the tweet with his username. ” Thank you Ari! I have always wondered about this and now I know the answer. Also great meeting you at Salty Legs –Carol
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