What Does ‘MT’ Mean on Twitter?

Direct messages, commonly referred to as simply DMs, are one of the only parts of Twitter that are private.

Introduction

Basically, direct messages are messages you send directly to another Twitter user; no one else can read them, except for the recipient.

However, the user you send a DM to has to follow you on Twitter. This requirement was enacted to decrease the amount of spam on Twitter.

Sending a direct message

There's a few ways to send a direct message:

• You can send one from the main What's Happening? textbox in the Twitter web interface. To do this, you type: d username message or dm username message: username is the name of the user you're sending the DM to, and message is your message.
• You can DM someone by going to their profile page and selecting Direct Message from the Actions button (next to the Lists button).
• You can hover over a user's profile picture in the timeline/inbox and select Direct Message from the Actions button.
• You can go to the Direct Messages tab on the Twitter home page (after you log in) and select a user. Once you do so, you can write a message as usual and click Send.

Difference from @ replies

In your question, you also asked how direct messages are different from posting @username ... on Twitter.

The @username style is known as an @ reply. You can use it to reply to someone's tweet or just say something to them (not to a specific tweet).

They are quite different from DMs:

• The user you @ reply to does NOT have to follow you.
• @ replies are NOT private. They are visible to everyone, unless your tweets are protected (private).

Hope that helped!

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 :

1. Your account is protected mentions sent to people who aren't following you will not be seen.
2. You will only see replies in your home time line if you are following both the sender and recipient of the tweet
3. You will see mentions not replies in your timeline as long as you are following the sender

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.

• http://twitter.com/home
• http://snapbird.org/ (Search your friends' tweets and blank for the search term)
• http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/home_timeline.xml (Inspect in web developer mode using your firefox or chrome 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.