On some online forums without proper
threaded discussions, @ is used to denote a reply; for instance: "@Jane" to respond to a comment Jane made earlier. Similarly, in some cases, @ is used for "attention" in e-mails originally sent to someone else. For example, if an e-mail was sent from Catherine to Steve, but in the body of the e-mail, Catherine wants to make Keirsten aware of something, Catherine will start the line "@Keirsten" to indicate to Keirsten that the following sentence concerns her. This also helps with mobile e-mail users who cannot see bold or color in e-mail.
In
microblogging (such as
Twitter and
StatusNet-based microblogs), @ before the user name is used to send publicly readable replies (e.g. "@otheruser: Message text here"). The blog and client software can automatically interpret these as links to the user in question. This use of the @ symbol was also made available to Facebook users on September 15, 2009.
[6] In
Internet Relay Chat (IRC), it is often shown before a user's nick to mark the operator of a channel.
On some online forums without proper
threaded discussions, @ is used to denote a reply; for instance: "@Jane" to respond to a comment Jane made earlier. Similarly, in some cases, @ is used for "attention" in e-mails originally sent to someone else. For example, if an e-mail was sent from Catherine to Steve, but in the body of the e-mail, Catherine wants to make Keirsten aware of something, Catherine will start the line "@Keirsten" to indicate to Keirsten that the following sentence concerns her. This also helps with mobile e-mail users who cannot see bold or color in e-mail.
In
microblogging (such as
Twitter and
StatusNet-based microblogs), @ before the user name is used to send publicly readable replies (e.g. "@otheruser: Message text here"). The blog and client software can automatically interpret these as links to the user in question. This use of the @ symbol was also made available to Facebook users on September 15, 2009.
[6] In
Internet Relay Chat (IRC), it is often shown before a user's nick to mark the operator of a channel.