Clarity on the @reply on Twitter

Posted on by Mark

When I first joined Twitter back in April 2008, there was an option to set your @replies in the settings part of your Twitter profile so that you could see one side of any conversation with people that you follow, that they are having with people that you don’t follow.

This was great, as it allowed you to find new and interesting people to follow based on the fact that you could see the conversations taking place. You could see who they were chatting & engaging with, and then decide that you may want to follow them as well. 

In May 2009, Twitter moved the goal posts, they removed the option to set your @replies from your Twitter settings page. Now, this is really important.

You can now only see an @reply if you are following both people. You can no longer see a conversation between someone you follow, and someone that you don’t follow. 

So yes this happened quite a while ago, But I wanted to make sure that everyone understood what the @replies are all about…

Please note that in both cases the messages will appear in the Twitter search. I am talking about automatically seeing the messages.

  • http://sallyreltonshakespeare.wordpress.com/ Sally Relton Shakespeare

    Oh, I get it now ! That’s why the Twitter-sphere feels so cold and thin when you first join up…. this explains why you should follow most people who are following you.

  • http://www.jojet.com Joel Hughes

    Hi Sally,
    just be careful of immediately following back as there are a lot of spam bots (nasties!) and you won’t gain much in terms of conversation by following them back.

    I typically follow back if the person looks interesting (bio etc) and their recent tweets seem up my alley.

    Joel

  • http://www.helpinghands-uk.com Petra Gericke

    just to get my head clear about this: when I reply i.e. to you do all my followers see my reply and do all your followers see it as well?

    and a very “stupid” question: where can I see a complete conversation? I thought tweets coming in in time order?

  • http://www.markshaw.biz Mark

    Heh Petra.. when you @reply someone.. you see it because you sent it.. they see it because they get it… and anyone else that follows both you and them automatically see it… hope that helps…. Mark

  • http://twitter.com/totallylaura Laura Summers

    Good to clarify as I don’t think people realise this.

  • PedroStephano

    Update – if you use the new tweetdeck you can ovveride this so as to see @replies to tweeps that you don’t follow. *BUT* I did this and set it – then was walloaed down in lots of conversations where I was not part of the target audience. My timeline doubled (obvious yes). So I’ve gone back to the default setting where I only see @replies where I’m following both tweeps