facebook-timelinetwitter
I follow a corporate account that uses that channel to reply to users of their products.
Sometimes they reply to some user I am not following, and I see that tweet in my timeline, there is no space or any other character before the @ symbol, so I shouldn't be seeing it.
Does anybody know if this is a bug in twitter, a known issue, or a trick used by that account to make their tweets more visible?
I would say yes you do receive them all.
Certain replies unless you follow both users are not able to be seen.
Cases for replies and mentions :
Even during the heaviest traffic times in World Cup I was able to see all the user tweets. The home timeline only receives 20 tweets without the refresh using the more button or the "N new tweets" message. That way it might seem to someone that they are not receiving all the tweets.
For example if X users > 20 posted at 2:30 pm during a World Cup game , it would appear to you that person Y's tweet is missing. It is there , it is just that the timeline only displays 20.
To verify this , you can test with the following tabs open on your browser.
Looking at these three will tell you that you are in fact getting all your tweets.
Edit
If you inspect a user's timeline and are sure that it does not match up with the three above then I would suggest to check http://status.twitter.com/ to see the current status of any errors that are occurring site-wide.
If you think it is more localized you can submit a Twicket : http://help.twitter.com/requests/new
Think your Twicket is taking too long shoot a mention to @delbius the lead on Twitter's Trust and Safety team.
Those are retweets.
Keep in mind:
If a particular account that you follow retweets updates that you don’t want to see in your home timeline, just visit their profile to turn off Retweets from them. Here’s how:
Important note (Update by Twitter on 9/21/2011): Some users report that even when they've turned off Retweets for a specific user, they still see that user's Retweeted Tweets in their timeline. Our engineers are aware of the issue and are working on a fix. Follow @support for updates on this issue.
Best Answer
Because the tweet in your example is not a reply (note that it doesn't show the tweet they're replying to). A tweet is considered a reply when you click the "reply" function in the website or a Twitter client. This sets the
in_reply_to_status_idparameter of the tweet, which is how Twitter knows it's a reply to a specific tweet. If you simply begin typing, even if there's a @username right at the start, thein_reply_to_status_idparameter is not set, so Twitter doesn't consider it a reply and people who follow you will see the tweet even if they don't follow @username.I hope that clears things up.