Comments on: Fixing the Twitter Reply Black Hole

By: draedpd

draedpd — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:14:17 +0000

You should subscribe to Plurk. There conversations are neatly ordered in separate threads and you see all participants in a conversation wether you are subscribed or not. If you visit someone you are not following, it’s the same, you see everybody’s messages.

By: Christina

Christina — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:06:51 +0000

I agree – I’m new to Twitter and didn’t know the old option, but have definitely missed the option of seing my friends’ @s. It has acctually annoied me so much that it is one of my reasons for not finding Twitter as usefull as expected.

By: Robert Rowe

Robert Rowe — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:24:38 +0000

Users had a choice of seeing replies made to people they also follow (which was the default), no replies, or all replies. According to @ev, very few people chose to see all (I was one of them).
I don’t understand completely, why they changed how it works, but instead of complaining, I made it work for me. If primarily want the person I’m replying to to see the Tweet, I keep them at the beginning. If I think others would want to chime in, however, I use the @ after my question.

By: Beej

Beej — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:03:10 +0000

I personally find that adding a hashtag to an @reply is one of the best ways to find new followers and to follow other people. Most hashtag tweets people make to the air are boring, but if they’re to another person, then they become much more interesting and worth checking out the entire conversation.

It’s voyeuristic, sure, but it’s how I find a lot of people to follow.

By: johny2shoes

johny2shoes — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:13:25 +0000

I did not realize until reading this post that was how it worked, i`m going to be using this with twitter now, as i like to read conversations and not just one way.

By: Janet Barclay

Janet Barclay — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:26:40 +0000

When they made this change, I noticed right away that there were fewer tweets in my stream. Although it made it easier to stay on top of things, I did miss the feature because, like many others, I found it a good way to find other interesting tweeps to follow.

Thanks for pointing out that we need only enter text before the user name to make it appear to people not following that user. I’ll try to remember that going forward!

By: Lawrence C.

Lawrence C. — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:37:03 +0000

Agreed.

And Twitter has amazing – even unforeseen – potential, with its ease of use (at least with a client, like TweetDeck), simplicity, flexiblity, and ability to easily slip on and off and adjusted on a mobile device on the fly.

Kim, above, EXCELLENT POINT: “I think that Twitter users have moved in a different direction with how they use Twitter (conversations with other users, etc.) versus how @ev and company intended for it to be used. Twitter, you need to evolve and provide the service that your userbase wants or they’ll find another service that will.”

By: j.ann

j.ann — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:54:04 +0000

It’s not too important, in my opinion. When I first joined Twitter, it was set to no @replies by default. I only changed it after months, just to see if I’d like it.

Turns out it did, and I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I started using PeopleBrowsr to check out my Twitterstream when not at my main computer! It shows all those @replies that others make to those I don’t follow, and it’s been really cool to have that back again! I wish they’d bring back the option so I can turn it back on again. :(

By: Doug Hudiburg

Doug Hudiburg — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:26:52 +0000

I agree, I miss the old approach to @ replies. I like to see who the people I follow are interacting with — even if I only see one side of the conversation. I found some great people to follow this way.

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:08:42 +0000

Yes I don’t think @ev and co realize what a monster they created :)

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:05:26 +0000

I agree – being able to see conversations between someone I follow and someone I wasn’t following was how I learned about new things and found other interesting people that I could follow (I had my settings to see all @ replies). Twitter’s work-around (begin your tweet with a word, not the other person’s name) does allow those replies to be seen by everyone, but it breaks Twitter’s built-in reply threading, making it more difficult to follow a conversation all the way through.

I found a partial work-around by using @troynt’s Twitter Script, as it displays the threaded conversation, but that can only be used with the Twitter web interface. Anyone using a third-party app, like TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop, is still out of luck.

I think that Twitter users have moved in a different direction with how they use Twitter (conversations with other users, etc.) versus how @ev and company intended for it to be used. Twitter, you need to evolve and provide the service that your userbase wants or they’ll find another service that will.

By: Richard - Accessible Web Testing and Design

Richard - Accessible Web Testing and Design — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:05:18 +0000

Although I think that my comment above only applies to any of my followers who are also following the person I replied to. Does that make sense?

By: Richard - Accessible Web Testing and Design

Richard - Accessible Web Testing and Design — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:03:26 +0000

I don’t know if it has changed recently but my experience (including today) is that replies with @ as the first character ARE visible to my other followers. What say you Chris?