How to handle simple mentions?

Sometimes, I receive questions from users wondering why a specific tweet mentioning their username is not appearing on their Twitoaster page. Most of the time, it’s because the tweet is neither a reply (in reply to a given a tweet) nor a retweet (reusing a given tweet) but a simple mention (a tweet where your @username appears).

Twitoaster is not handling these simple mentions. The reason is it’s quite difficult to guess if a mention is just a spontaneous tweet someone wanted to highlight on your timeline; or if it’s actually a reply / retweet.

I already made a couple of tests using a time window algorithm (grouping mentions with the closest tweet you made) but it retrieved far too much “false positives”.

A good idea would probably be to mix this technique with semantic analysis, but it’s a heavy development for something that probably won’t worth it… Most of people who really want to reply (and not just drag your attention) are making a real reply.

So I’m opening the debate: Would you like to see these simple mentions handled on Twitoaster, or is it useless? If there are developers around, I’d be happy to hear their technical suggestions! Think also to share this post if you know some Twitter devs :)