Twitter Blog: Replies Are Now Mentions: “We’re updating the Replies feature and referring to it instead as Mentions. In your Twitter sidebar you’ll now see your own @username tab. When you click that tab, you’ll see a list of all tweets referencing your account with the @username convention anywhere in the tweet—instead of only at the beginning which is how it used to work. So for me it would be all mentions of @biz. For developers, this update will also be included in the APIs.”
So why is this great news? It’s news foremost because it removes the need for a client application or website to find those hidden @ mentions. This feature alone will greatly increase my enjoyment and usefulness of Twitter.
So why now?
So, we started linking the @username references and collecting any tweets that began with @username on one page to make them easier to track.
However, folks started getting more inventive as they often do. Now people include @username mentions in the middle of tweets as a way to simply reference another account. For example: I’m flying @jetblue to Boston. Also, folks reference multiple accounts in a single tweet like this: I’m flying @jetblue to Boston with @ev @crystal and @goldman.
Well, that’s sums it up for me anyway. I was quick to pick up using the @
Will this kill client use for some? Sure it will. Opening the API though will likely remove a large amount of overhead from client applications. Resources previously spent tracking those embedded mentions.
Screenshot from the blog post:
Here’s an example from my own @tojosan page:
I’m excited about this and I hope each of you take a few minutes to explore using it, and that goes for developers as well.
Yours,
Todd
@tojosan
