When you're on Twitter you will often see @ replies.These are messages sent by people that are directed at a specific person but also available to the public. Rather different from direct messages or D's, also known as dm's in that direct messages are private between the sender and the receiver. @ replies can be read by anyone looking at your timeline of updates and can be searched via Twitter's search feature
So have you been receiving @ replies on your Twitter timeline from people you follow but not directed at you? Are these bothering you or would you like to know who your friends on Twitter are talking to just in case they're talking to someone who might catch your interest?
Either way, here's a tip to choose whether you see @ replies or not on your timeline.
When you log in to your Twitter account, click on the top right of the screen where it says Settings. Then you'll see the page as displayed below. Click on Notices and click again on the drop-down menu next to where it says @ Replies.
If you pick all @ replies, you'll see messages from people whose updates you follow regardless of the recipient.
Selecting @ replies to the people I'm following means you'll only see @ replies when the intended recipient is also someone whose update you follow. If your friend sends a message to someone you're not following, you won't see that message. Often this helps reduce noise and messages you're probably not interested in or not wanting to read. By default this should be your setting.
No @ replies means just that. You won't see conversations in your timeline, just regular updates from your friends. You will however see messages intended for you when you click the Replies tab to the right of the timeline. This is useful when you prefer not to see conversations at all. Often people use (or misuse) Twitter as a conversational tool like instant messaging and these can sometimes be overwhelming.
Two options on
Notices that I find most useful are the ones I selected that sends me email whenever someone starts to follow me and whenever somebody sends me a direct message. Sometimes I'm not on Twitter, which means I'm in the middle of checking email while mobile. When somebody sends me a dm, I would know right away because the email would contain the message. Unfortunately right know you're not able to reply direct messages by email as far as I know so after reading a direct message on email, you'll have to go back to
mobile Twitter or whatever Twitter client you use.
Once you're done with setting up your Twitter preferences, don't forget to click Save.
