As I mentioned before, I've recently become wrapped up in the Twitter-craze that is sweeping the web. I'm still a bit of a noob but one think I noticed quickly was some of the Twitter-centric lexicon that was being used by other Twits.

Of particular interest is the @username syntax. What does that do? Well as luck would have it the Twitter Help pages have an answer:

When someone sends a Twitter that inspires a reply, what can you do? Direct Text the person if your reply is personal and only meant for their eyes.  But sometimes you want everyone who read the original Twitter to see the reply.

... By using an "@username" formula [twitter will] link '@' replies back to the original Twitters (for those who missed the real time conversation, but still want to catch up.)

From my feed

Looking back at my friends' feed for the past day I noticed this syntax in use a good bit. Take a look at this screen shot of two separate conversations within my feed - Haacked talking about his SATA cables, and Simo about flying back to Italia.

The feed reads from bottom to top, and you'll notice that when I replied with @haacked, Twitter automatically linked that update back to Haacked's Twitter page. See the in reply to haacked link at the end of my update?

The same is true for my reply to simonech and then his reply to my reply. And 'round, and 'round we go!

Happy Twittering!