Getting replies to our account

[ca...@dddstepbystep.co.uk]

We want to get the replies to our tweets, which I would have thought
was simple enough ... but proves not to be so ...

Using "Mentions" is one mechanism which looks like it will work OK,
but I'm reading that using the Search API is the recommended route.

Using the Search route, with to:user works just fine, but doesn't
include the in_reply_to_status_id field, so we can't tell which
message it was in reply to. I read on here somewhere that this is to
be included in an API upgrade at some point ... anyone got any idea
when this will be?

If you like our algorithm is ... We post a tweet every hour, we want
to scan on an hourly basis for all replies to us, and collate them in
our system against the tweet they were in reply to ...


Are we taking the best approach, is there a better way, or do we just
use the Mentions feature of the REST API till the Search API gets
in_reply_to_status_id populated?

[P Burrows]

I'd think with the recent changes to the replies (mentions) functionality, there isn't a reason to use search any more (for that functionality). Mentions now include any tweet that has your @username in it. Whereas before it did not. Of course, now the in_reply_to_status_id might not be to one of your tweets. It might not even have an in_reply_to_status_id at all.

--
Patrick Burrows
http://www.CleverHumans.com

[Doug Williams]

Casey,
I believe you received some misguided advice. The statuses/mentions [1] method is your best bet. With a single call to this method you will have access to all mentions of your username and the actual status data [2] and in_reply_to data.

1. http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method%3A-statuses-mentions
2. http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-Search-API-Method%3A-search (See the warning in the response section).

Thanks,
Doug
--

Doug Williams
Twitter Platform Support
http://twitter.com/dougw