Remember when @replies were seen by everyone who followed you and then Twitter started hiding people’s @replies if it was to someone you didn’t follow and we were all upset about it because how were we going to discover cool new people to follow? Good times.

One of the best things about Twitter is that my experience using it has hardly changed at all since I first signed up in March of 2007. Since I follow who I chose, it doesn’t matter to me how big Twitter gets or how many silly people join it. Because I don’t have to follow those people.

With all the kerfluffle about Twitter’s aim to unify the user experience, I just hope they don’t kill what I consider to be the next best thing about Twitter: it’s 3rd-party clients.

(Via Kottke.)

Origin of the @reply