What’s up with the .@ reply in Twitter?
Or “dot at” or “period at”…whatever.
I see this cropping up all over Twitter and Google search for the answer was a little difficult as the results are just a bunch of .@ replies!
Finally I found an article written by Michael Calore at WebMonkey which explained the limitations of the @ reply:
This means that even if you’re following somebody, you won’t see everything they post. You’ll still see the tweets where they don’t add another user’s name, and the tweets where they reply to you or to somebody else you’re following. What you won’t see is any tweet they send in reply to somebody you’re not following.
If you follow me, but not @sally, you won’t see this tweet:
@sally OMG i totally agree!
It’s important to distinguish a reply from a mention. The above example is a reply. Mentions (including retweets) will still show up, so you’ll see this tweet:
Heading to lunch with @sally
The period / dot before the @ is a workaround that limitation. Which means that if you type:
.@sally OMG i totally agree!
Everyone who is following you will see it, whether or not they are friends with @sally.
Back to hacking my Wordpress blog. 
