Tracking conversations in twitter

Question

I am not a hardcore Twitter user but this sounds like a stupid question. In Twitter there seem to be no way to track where conversations start. I can only see that @replyto, leading me to the user account. But he has a lot of tweets, I as a user will not know where the conversation started?

Answer 1

There's nothing built into Twitter itself.

There's a service call Bettween that offers this. It's a little slow the first time you use it, but claims it's quicker for subsequent visits.

Additionally this post on Gamblz from 2008 lists 5 ways to find and track conversations using 3rd party applications. I don't know whether any of these are still working.

Answer 2

On most tweets there is a In reply to <user> in small print below the message. If you click on the username there you get the direct message the user is replying to (at least most times). I'm not sure when they are inserted but often they do. (You need to do a few clicks to find the actual start of the conversation though).

Answer 3

If you have your own web server, there is a freely installable web app called ThinkUp that "lets you capture the insights and expertise of your social network by collecting and organizing replies to your conversations on Twitter, Facebook and (soon!) other networks."

Answer 4

The web based client Hootsuite has a "Show conversation" link if tweet is a reply to an user you are following too. It's a good client.

Answer 5

One can use Conweets for tracking conversations

In a nutshell, a conversation finder. But in truth, its much more that that! Digging through the conversations between two people on twitter has always been a task requiring moving back and forth between pages involving many clicks. It was because of this reason development started on Conweets, a site with an elegant, easy to use interface, providing conversations taking place on twitter.