There are some basic functions in Twitter that make using the service much more useful all round and involve understanding the way in which a tweet containing @username works, where username is the ID of a fellow twitter user, e.g. @sciencebase

1. Start a tweet with “@username” and only “username” and the people you and they follow will see the tweet.
2. Use “d @username” or “DM @username” and only username sees the direct message and you keep a copy in your Messages.
3. Put another character in front of @username, such as as “.@username” and everyone sees the tweet including username in their stream, same applies if you put @username anywhere else in the tweet.
4. Put “RT” in front of the @username, i.e. “RT @username” to retweet their original message and the various metrics systems pass on the kudos to username.