Today, there are a lot of tweets going around about Twitter changing the options of @replies. You may have seen the #fixreplys and #twitterfail tags. But I think there are a lot of people upset over something they don’t completely understand. So let me try to explain… and if this all seems insanely confusing, it is, so bear with me.
Keep in mind, this only affects how you see @replies in your feed (at twitter.com/home, through a Twitter application or as an SMS to your phone). This does not affect what you see if you go directly to a person’s twitter page (ie. twitter.com/username).
First off, you need to understand what things were like before the change. There were 3 options on how you received @replies in your feed.
- See every single @reply (from people you were following to people you are also following AND to people you weren’t following)
- See only @replies if they are to you (ie. @yourname) or to someone you are following
- Don’t see any @replies, no matter what
After the change, the only option you have is #2 – to receive @replies from people you are following to you or other people you are following.
Here is an extremely basic example: @A follows @B and @C, but does not follow @D
- @B says: @A Call me later — @A will see this because you still see @replies directed at you
- @B says: @C Let’s go to the bar — @A will see this because @A follows @C
- @B says: @D You’re hot — @A will NOT see this because @A is not following @D
Twitter isn’t blocking you from seeing @replies to other people… you can still see them by going to a person’s Twitter page directly. For example, if you go to twitter.com/B, you will see the message to @D. This change just prevents the @reply from cluttering up your own Twitter feed.
The weird exception (that really has nothing to do with this problem at all) is this: What if a person that you’re not following send an @reply to you? What if @D says: @A Follow me on twitter! Will @A see this? And that all depends on how @A is using Twitter. Most Twitter applications (Tweetdeck, twhirl, etc) search for mentions of you, so if someone that @A isn’t following says @A in their tweet, @A will see that. SMS and Twitter.com users still won’t see this reply… but they never did, so who cares now?
So… who does this change REALLY affect? Well, it affects anyone who originally subscribed to option #1: See every single @reply (from people you were following to people you are also following AND to people you weren’t following). According to Twitter, only 2% of the Twitter users used that option. Doesn’t sound like much, until you remember that Twitter has around 6 million registered users.
As a disclaimer, I’m not judging whether or not Twitter should have made the changes. Personally, the change doesn’t affect me. But when you have 2% of a 6 million user database using the option that you removed, you may want to think twice about taking the option away. The point of this article is merely to explain WHAT changed, since I think a lot of people are confused. I hope this helps!
Tags: changes, fixreplys, replies, Twitter, twitterfail
