Twitter for Dummies - Laura Fitton [25]
Shhh! Sending Private Notes via Direct Messages
Direct messages (DMs) let you send your contacts private notes through Twitter. Just like regular tweets and @replies, they’re limited to 140 characters. Unlike regular tweets and @replies, the only person who can see a DM is the recipient.
You can send a DM only to a Twitter user who’s following you (but you don’t have to be following that user), which is designed to prevent spamming and other unwanted messages by ensuring that people get direct messages only from people they actually want to follow.
The easiest way to see whether someone is following you and to send them a direct message while you’re there is to simply go to that person’s Profile page. You can get to the Profile page by either clicking that person’s @username anywhere that you see it or by typing the username into the URL bar on your Web browser after Twitter.com (http://twitter.com/username). Then follow these steps:
1. Look for the Message link in the right sidebar under Actions.
If the only action visible is to block the person, he does not follow you, and you can’t DM him.
2. Click the Message link.
The screen changes to a single text box over the user’s Twitter background that is labeled Send Username a Message.
3. Write and send your message.
Compose your direct message in this box and then click Send.
You can also send a DM using the main Direct Messages interface:
1. If you’re not on the Direct Messages page on Twitter, click the Direct Messages tab on the sidebar of any Twitter page.
The Direct Messages page opens (as shown in Figure 3-3), displaying
• The Inbox tab, which shows all the direct messages you’ve received over the course of your time using Twitter
• The Sent tab, which shows you all the DMs that you’ve sent
• A tweet input box that’s specifically for DMs
Above the text field, you can find a drop-down menu from which you select the recipient of your DM. That menu lists only the Twitter users who are following you and hence can receive DMs from you.
2. Select a name from the drop-down menu.
Note: If a lot of people follow you, your drop-down menu doesn’t contain every single follower’s name. After recent Twitter changes, the list now appears to show you the list of people you’ve most recently been DMing with, which is a great solution.
Figure 3-3: The Direct Messages panel, which lets you have private Twitter conversations.
The only problem is that when a name doesn’t appear in your Direct Message drop-down list, you may assume that it’s because the person no longer follows you. The Direct Message interface can even mistakenly return an error message saying that a given person doesn’t follow you. It’s just not true. The only reliable way to see whether someone follows you back or not is to visit that person’s Profile page. (These steps are described in the preceding list.) Laura has actually had people get sort of mad at her about this, which is ironic because she goes really far out of her way (following everyone back) to make sure that any reader can send her a DM.
3. Type a message in the Send a Direct Message box.
4. Click Send to send the message.
You can send DMs from any regular Twitter input source — text messages, third-party apps, or the main Twitter interface — by entering d [username] and then typing your tweet. For example, if you want to send a direct message to our Dummies account (@dummies) to ask when the next edition of Twitter For Dummies is coming out, you format the DM as d dummies When’s the next edition coming out?
Sending DMs is easy. But proceed with caution! Many Twitter users have embarrassing tales of DMs that they accidentally sent as public tweets because they formatted the tweet incorrectly or sent it from the Twitter Home screen instead of from the user’s Profile page (best bet) or the Direct Messages page. Double-check, just to be sure.
Playing (Twitter) Favorites
One of the icons that appears when you hover your mouse over a particular