Those Lost Twitter Replies
If you’re a long-time user of Twitter, you probably remember when Twitter stopped sending all tweets to the public stream. If you’re a newer Twitter user (under a year), you may not even realize that Twitter performs some filtering on what you submit to the service. In May of 2009, Twitter decided that you didn’t need to see all replies (tweets that begin with @{username}) in your tweet stream. Twitter only shows you replies to tweets if you are following the person to which the reply is directed. Here’s an example:
If you’re following both @josh and @john, you would see the following tweet:
If you’re following @josh but you’re not following @mary, you would not see this tweet:
For me, this was an ill-considered service change. When I first started using Twitter, I discovered many interesting people through replies that weren’t directed to me or anyone on my friend list. I’d often see one side of the conversation through someone I followed. If it looked like an interesting discussion, I’d follow that other person as well. It was a great way to organically grow the list of people I followed on Twitter.
Now, of course, we need to develop strategies to get around the reply limitations. There are a couple of things that I’ve learned that might be helpful as you try to accomplish your goals on Twitter.
Dot-At: The dot-at approach allows you to reply to a tweet while bypassing the Twitter reply filter. Instead of beginning a tweet with @{username}, simply start the tweet with .@{username}. The person to which you’re directing the tweet will still know that the tweet is a reply, and everyone else who is following you will see the information too. (h/t @bibliotech)
Reply Order: (You may want to send your more idealistic self out of the room for this one.) I don’t think about this strategy on a regular basis, but it is worth noting. If you’re replying to multiple people, your reply will have the most impact if you place the person with which you share the most followers first on the list. This strategy assumes that you have followers in common with some of the people to which you’re replying. It’s a tad manipulative to think this way, but if you don’t use the dot-at strategy above, this tip will help your reply reach the largest number of people.
I try to keep a good mix of news, opinions, and conversation in my Twitter stream. I thoroughly enjoy the conversations, but I’m sad that so much of my witty banter is lost to the rest of my followers. To think that people have missed tweets like this:
and this:
@lazarus2000 Where is Bruce Willis when you really need him
swhitley
Pure gold. 
But seriously, what if you saw me replying to @swoodruff throughout the day? You might think, “I have no idea who that guy is, but he must really get under swhitley’s skin; I’m going to follow him too.” That’s what we had when Twitter started, and that’s what I miss when I think about the new system. I’d love to see Twitter roll out a configurable option so that we can decide how we want replies handled, but I’m not holding my breath.
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9 Responses to “Those Lost Twitter Replies”
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- Davey_Rich (Davey Rich)
Those Lost Twitter Replies | Shannon Whitley [link to post] - NEMultimedia (NewEnglandMultimedia)
#Twitter Tips about getting the most bang out of your @replies. Great post, @swhitley! [link to post] - Twitter @Chat | Shannon Whitley
[...] in case you aren’t aware of the workaround for the filter, you can take a quick peek at that older post. This morning, however, I was thinking how we might be able to put that filter to work for us in [...]
- Twitter disappears Bill McKibben commentary on #poisonedweather | Watts Up With That?
[...] As the commenter above points out with links, I didn’t disappear or delete anything. I think what happens is that you may not be following me on twitter and so the replies don’t show up on your stream. Here’s a link to the phenomenon, which is apparently common: http://www.voiceoftech.com/swhitley/index.php/2010/05/those-lost-twitter-replies/ [...]
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Nice thought, and it works when your group is relatively small…. I can’t imagine wanting to, or being bothered to trawl through pages and pages of someone elses nonsensical conversation that has naff all to do with me though…
I keep friends and business contacts on the same account. I couldn’t do this, and wouldn’t want to do this if each were subjected to each and every reply…
I think the filter makes it more manageable, and while you make a good point about exposure – frankly, the dotReply or simple Mention is used heavily, as is RT’ing and Follow Friday for bringing attention to replies and other users.
Filtering by default, I believe, gives the majority of users the view that would most appeal to them and gives them the best user experience.
You’ve got a good grasp of the twitter API and a large following base – pull a days worth of updates from all the users you follow including their public replies, and see how manageable it is.
Can you imagine wading through that if you’ve had to be offline for a few hours? Do you think Twitter would have the same experience and value?
Each to their own I suppose, but I think the filtering was a good idea that brought a little order to what otherwise would have devolved into chaos.
I, for one, would not be inclined to use Twitter today if it had remained the same.
Thoughts?
Kind of agree with Ian re:standard view but I also agree that this would be an excellent feature in Twitter clients.
There are a wide variety of basic filtering features missing from Twitter.
If I was working at Twitter I would probably be annoyed that there aren’t better tools for getting all the good stuff out of the stream. You know, like my witty banter, err… I mean your witty banter
Nice post. I didn’t even realize that was happening until a friend told me about the “.@” reply. I sometimes feel weird doing that though–as if I think so highly of myself that I don’t want the universe to miss out on the fact that I spilled Spaghetti-O’s down my shirt this morning. I guess it takes a little thought to decide what warrants that little dot. Enjoyed the article!
Thanks for posting this, wondering where my tweets went, especially if someone retweets something from a hash tag post, even if they are a follower of mine I won’t often times get the reply, and like you I miss my oh-so-important banter from reaching the masses
Thanks again.
From Twitter a few minutes ago. Some of you may have missed it.
@conniereece said,
Totally agree w/ @swhitley on this: “Those Lost Twitter Replies” – http://is.gd/cq9Up [Built my list of ppl to follow this way.]
@conniereece It used to be that way for a short time. A “radio box” chooser; All replies, replies only to mutual friends, no replies”. #bestway
@swhitley @mikeneumann You’re right, that would have been the best decision for all. Let people choose.
@swhitley @mikeneumann That’s right. It’s been so long, I forgot.
Thanks for the RT!
I’m a firm believer that Twitter made the changes, and the final “decision” based purely on their database performance woes at the time, and never revisited the option. They’re too busy working out their closed Ad engine. (* cough, sarc *)
As for me, they chose the behavior that I was using. I was frankly tired of some long-winded bantering between some users who clearly needed to get a (conference) room.
A followup comment after a reply from @swhitley and reading the follow ups here.
The nail has been firmly hit – the option given for user selection, as it once was (was that when Mentions and Replies were still listed separately too?)
I still think this way as default is best, but to be fair the option SHOULD be there (and other filtering options, as Chris rightly pointed out).
Thanks for pasting that convo Mike – point made quite nicely and I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusion.
Great comments, everyone. Thank you.
@IleenieWeenie – I feel that way whenever I use the “.@” too, and I tend not to use it too often. It’s like a little kid saying, “Look at me.” On the other hand, people do miss out on good conversation if it’s never used.
I miss those replies, too! And, a recent poll of my Twitter followers seems to say that we lost a valuable tool for connecting when Twitter changed the rules.
I asked, out of sheer curiousty, how the people who follow me found me to follow and 17% said it was because they saw someone @ me. (must have been loyal followers from pre-May09)
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Those Lost Twitter Replies | Shannon Whitley [link to post]
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Great post. I agree with everything everyone else has said about Twitter (thankfully) cleaning up our feeds, but like you, I also want to be able to drive attention to the people I’m replying to, when appropriate.
What I do is place the @so-and-so deeper into the Tweet, conversationally. Like so:
Hey, @NewEnglandHD, love the promo video you did for @12MeterCharters! Makes me miss sailing in Newport!
Love the .@so-and-so approach. I haven’t seen that in my own feed yet, but I’m sending people to this post, so maybe it’ll catch on!
Michelle Quillin
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#Twitter Tips about getting the most bang out of your @replies. Great post, @swhitley! [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
[...] in case you aren’t aware of the workaround for the filter, you can take a quick peek at that older post. This morning, however, I was thinking how we might be able to put that filter to work for us in [...]
[...] As the commenter above points out with links, I didn’t disappear or delete anything. I think what happens is that you may not be following me on twitter and so the replies don’t show up on your stream. Here’s a link to the phenomenon, which is apparently common: http://www.voiceoftech.com/swhitley/index.php/2010/05/those-lost-twitter-replies/ [...]