Twitter News — @Username Tab
Twitter introduced two new tabs, @Username tab that replaced @Mentions and Retweets tabs, and the Activity tab on August 10, 2011.
The new tab with your @Username keeps you up to date on your tweets that are favorites, the latest retweets (of your tweets), tweets directed to you (replies and mentions), tweeps who have listed you, and your new followers.
The other new Activity tab highlights the latest favorites, retweets, and follows from the people you follow on Twitter. I wouldn’t like to waste my time on this tab as I find it most irritating, and of no use.
I wrote about these new features when they appeared for the first time on my account, three months after first release. At that time the new features were full of bugs.
Twitter Activity and Mentions Tabs
Found activity stream irrelevant, and mentions stream full of bugs
The bugs have gradually disappeared. And I have found the @Username tab pretty useful barring a few shortcomings.
In this article, I would like to discuss the usefulness of the @Username tab and shortcomings, if any.
The best thing about the new @Username tab is that now you see not only mentions, but also tweets that were retweeted, who followed you, who favorited your tweet, and who listed you, all at one place. But if you want there is a Show mentions only checkbox to see mentions only.
Favorited your Tweet
The new feature displays when a user favorites one of your tweets. On the next line it shows a portion of your tweet that is favorited.
If you click on the phrase favorited your Tweets on the first line, you will see your favorited tweet on the right panel.
If the same user favorited more of your tweets then a link appears on the third line:
Show other favorited Tweets by username
If you click the link, it will show on the next line, other favorited Tweets by the same user.
But here I found another bug. The other tweet was not favorited but retweeted by the user.
This information is important for me for two reasons. I never follow aggressively. One of my criteria for following is if someone engages with me. So I could click on the name of the user to see brief bio and follow button on the right panel.
After reading the bio, I may follow him if I am not already following. Secondly, I always acknowledge the favor. So I could always select mention from the pull down menu on the right panel, and convey to the user my message.
With this new feature, everything is so streamlined. I could take my action there and then without hopping around to user’s profile or follow page.
Retweeted your Tweet
The new feature displays when one or more users retweets one of your tweets. On the next line it shows a portion of your tweet that is retweeted.
As explained above, if you click on the phrase retweeted you, you will see the full retweeted tweet on the right panel.
If the same user retweeted more of your tweets then a link appears on the third line:
Show other retweets by username
If you click the link, it will show on the next line, other retweets by the same user.
As explained above, you may take your action in response to your retweet information, there and then.
Listed You
This information is incomplete. If more than one user has listed you, it will show you only the first user and his list name.
So you will be able to take any action (follow, mention, list) in response to the first user only. For details, you will have to visit the Lists tab of your profile only.
Followed You
This information shows the avatars of users who have followed you. You may click on an avatar, see the user’s details on the right panel, and decide whether or not you will followback without visiting the Followers tab of your profile. So it saves you time.
But there is a problem. As you have more and more followers, the information is repeated. The avatars do not appear in chronological order but at random. So it gets irritating as you may check the same user repeatedly to see whether you could followback.
At the end, you will have to visit the Followers tab of your profile if you are sincere about followback, and you prefer to follow manually rather than auto-follow everyone.
On the whole, I have found this new feature extremely useful and time saving.
But as I mentioned in my previous article, the biggest drawback is the disappearance of the Retweet icon. So when you return later to your @Username tab, you find that retweet icons are gone, and it becomes difficult for you to decide from where to start.
Please, share your views about the new features by writing your valuable comments.
You may follow me on Twitter:
@goldenTwine Kolkata, India
Founder, GoldenTwine Informatics, Entrepreneur, website designer and developer, Internet marketer, social media enthusiast, and blogger.
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