I am new to Twitter and have been wondering what all the @, # and short forms mean. I had thought that people were being rude but the friends/organizations that I am following just don't seem to be the type, so I started looking for more information.
The Twitter Support site was sort of useful under the section "Fun Stuff" and gave me this information.
@ directs a twitter at another person, and causes your twitter to save in their "replies" tab.
Example: @cacemlis You're too cool!
D username + message
sends a person a private message that goes to their device, and saves in their web archive.
Example: d cacemlis where do you want the chocolate delivered?
WHOIS username
retrieves the profile information for any public user on Twitter. It opens very quickly and closes very quickly so anyone who's been wordy in their profile might make it challenging.
Example: whois cacemlis
GET username
retrieves the latest Twitter update posted by the person.
Example: get cacemlis
NUDGE username
reminds a friend to update by asking what they're doing on your behalf. Something you may have to do to me on a regular basis!
Example: nudge cacemlis
FAV username
marks a person's last twitter as a favorite. (hint: reply to any update with FAV to mark it as a favorite if you're receiving it in real time)
Example: fav cacemlis
STATS this command returns your number of followers, how many people
you're following, and which words you're tracking.
This basically gives you the same information you see in your right hand menu in Twitter so I'm not too sure how this would be useful.
INVITE phone number
will send an SMS invite to a friend's mobile phone.
Example: Invite 415 555 1212
From Butterscotch's "Twitter Language and other power user tips" I learned...
RT is a retweet
and means that someone is reposting a message that someone else sent but that is being reposted.
Example: RT @cacemlis Love Bernard Callebaut Chocolate!
It seems to me that in this instance RT is usually followed somewhere in the tweet by the @username to provide credit and to let the original user know that they are being quoted.
OH
preceding a post is accepted to mean that you're letting people know something funny or interesting that you overheard and not posting an original thought.
Example: OH "To Tweet or not to Tweet"
#
"Hash tags" are keywords preceded with the # symbol.
Example: #manitoba
I wasn't really clear on how these should be used and I discovered a wonderful explanation on the Twitter Fan Wiki page "Hashtags". These keywords are used to identify common themes/memes in Twitter. You can use the Twitter Search to look for these keywords. Try "#nhl #winnipeg OR #jets" in the search window if you are a Winnipeger looking to bring an NHL franchise team back home. You get the idea.
Is there any others I should know about?