Why People Use "." in front of their @ replies

Last week podcaster Bob Knorpp (@thebeancast) explained to me why some people use a period on front of the twitter handle they're responding to. Ever since, I've started noticing many people exhibiting this behaviors. As you know, when you @reply to someone, the only people who will see that tweet in their stream are those who are following both you (the tweeter) and the intended receiver (the person who the @reply is directed at). In some cases, that situation works out best because the response is fairly specific and your masses don't need to see the out-of-context response. In other cases, you response may actually be valuable to your entire group of followers. If that is the case, adding a period in front of the reply will then trigger the twitter system to feed the tweet to everyone, not just the recipient.

Here's an example of a standard tweet and response: 

JohnDoe: Is anyone having problems with the latest Wordpress update?

BobSmith: @JohnDoe, yes they just updated their blog with technical issues.

Here's one that is more relevant to a broader group:

JohnDoe: Wow I'm really liking Google Wave. 

BobSmith: .@JohnDoe Most people haven't discovered this yet, but did you know Wave can do X, Y, and Z? (link)

Comments

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Interesting! So there is actually a difference between tweeting with @ and .@? I didn't know that... thanks for sharing... :D