I call people who do that “Twitter@i” (Twitter-at-i). I have sometimes tried to hop over to an unfollowed page to see what a “Twitter@i” is talking about, but I can rarely figure it out. I will occasionally do an @, myself, but I try to make sure the tweet can stand on its own. I don’t much mind the @’s.

Yes, the @’s can be annoying like overheard cell phone conversations, however, once in a while, I read something interesting in an @ conversation and paste the twitter-name it was directed to and add them to those I follow. It is so much easier to ignore the @s then cell talkers, it doesn’t bother me.

Hi, James. I can see where you’re coming from, and there a lots of Tweeters who are guilty of using it like too much like IM. However, sometimes I will catch an @ comment and then surf over to the person’s Twitter page and see the rest of the conversation has some interesting info. I have to say, there have been quite a few conversations that Kevin had that lead me to some interesting links. Or when people were talking about big news items that I hadn’t yet read about.

Perhaps it’s the busybody in me, but I don’t mind the @ comments that much. :) If you go over to Jaiku, you’re able to directly comment on someone’s post, and the conversation can occur in a more organized fashion, like mini forum threads. I think Jaiku handles that aspect of community better than Twitter, but I still hang out on both.

@jkendrick: I agree.

Albertkarel, getting onto Twitter is easy, just go to twitter.com and sign up. You can follow Twitter on the web or on your phone and you can even post your own Twitters from your phone. The best way to get started is to visit the Twitter help page when you’re on their site, they have detailed information for how it works and how you can maximize your benefit from it.

James- since you have often mentioned Twitter….is there a good summary of how Twitter works and how you can get into it. Also…do you have to list specific people when you join…or is there a way to just “listen in”. For example, Kevin, I think, has mentioned that he gets good tech info….is the because he has specified certain people who chitchat tech? Sorry for the dummy comment, but after I read about it enough on your site, I just wanna give it a try. Thanks, and keep up the great work!