15 replies to this topic

[Mr Spoon]

Why do people (usually companies) use ^ to display who wrote the tweet?
Why not any other sign? I would have thought - would have looked better...

[Intrinsica]

Mr Spoon, on 15 February 2013 - 14:51, said:

Why do people (usually companies) use ^ to display who wrote the tweet?
Why not any other sign? I would have thought - would have looked better...

Can you take a screenshot of what you mean? I don't really use Twitter and I'm at work.

[Draconian Guppy]

Intrinsica, on 15 February 2013 - 15:06, said:

Can you take a screenshot of what you mean? I don't really use Twitter and I'm at work.

^^^^ As pointed above ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Is that what you mean OP?

[episode]

Draconian Guppy, on 15 February 2013 - 15:10, said:

^^^^ As pointed above ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Is that what you mean OP?

I doubt it, because twitter scrolls up, not down.

[Intrinsica]

Draconian Guppy, on 15 February 2013 - 15:10, said:

^^^^ As pointed above ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I understand the sign itself, I would just like to see a screenshot of how people are using it to quote others.

[DaveLegg]

It's not used to quote others, for example, if I was to post something on the Oxford Pride twitter account, I would write something like "Looking forward to June, a lot of great events planned ^DL"

The ^DL allows people that read the feed to differentiate between the different people they may be communicating with on the one twitter account.

[Hum]

Mr Spoon, on 15 February 2013 - 14:51, said:

Why do people (usually companies) use ^ to display who wrote the tweet?

I thought ^ was to indicate penis size.

[Intrinsica]

DaveLegg, on 15 February 2013 - 15:15, said:

The ^DL allows people that read the feed to differentiate between the different people they may be communicating with on the one twitter account.

Well that is odd then. Pretty much everywhere else they would have used a dash...

[DaveLegg]

Intrinsica, on 15 February 2013 - 15:20, said:

Well that is odd then. Pretty much everywhere else they would have used a dash...

It's just a convention. Like in most places to refer to someone in a message, I may do something like
"Intrinsica: It's just a convention"
On twitter I would do
"@Intrinsica It's just a convention"

I guess by using a character not usually used in the messages themselves, it allows easier automated analysis of tweets

[Draconian Guppy]

@ Davelegg
but if you use @ in twitter it notifies the user, hence the funcionality or is just like my example above(sorry non twitter user as well) ?

[DaveLegg]

It does, and I imagine they chose to use @Name in that format for similar reasons: it's easier to automatically parse the messages for those mentions, whereas : would occur more in the body of the message itself.

[TCA]

i always used ^ if I made a typo in IM or sms
@DaveLeg but that's pretty useful 411 though.

[Mr Spoon]

Example accounts which use what I explained:

https://twitter.com/ATGuestServices (scroll down)
https://twitter.com/virgintrains

[Gnieus]

@XboxSupport also use this symbol a lot. It's ^ followed by initials. E.G: ^ZB

[+jamesyfx]

It looks like a signature of sorts. I guess it's just an unofficial Twitter thing.