How long does a tweet live before it gets buried in the scroll line? Someone told me less than 60 seconds. Is that accurate? –Paula Cappa, @PaulaCappa1

I like this question because I see more implied here than is stated. On the lines, I read: “How long does a tweet live?” Between the lines, I read: “Does anyone actually see my tweets?” I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m projecting, Paula, but for the sake of this column I’m going to answer that projection as much as I’ll answer your literal question.

So, how long does a tweet live? Technically, all tweets last indefinitely, because anyone could do a search or otherwise come across any old tweet at any time. They can still read it, which means they can still “like” it (used to be “favorite”) or retweet it even if it’s five years old. To find the permanent link to an old tweet, click on the time stamp beside it, circled in red here:

This will open the tweet on its own page, like so:

Once the tweet is opened in its own page, you can copy the permalink URL from your browser bar. For the tweet screenshot above, the permalink is: https://twitter.com/AnnieNeugebauer/status/675078988612661248

(This is useful if you want to imbed a tweet in a blog post or link to it on other sites; there are also options for “copy link to tweet” and “embed tweet” under the “more” dropdown, which looks like an ellipsis under your tweet.) The permalink will last until you delete the tweet. Or perhaps until Twitter deletes it, someday, in some sort of anarchist housecleaning fit. Who knows?

But “forever” is a frustrating answer, isn’t it? How long will the tweet show in the actual timeline, or scroll line as you call it, Paula?

Why not open your timeline and see? Go ahead, open another tab to Twitter and take a look at the top tweet. Depending on what kind of device you’re on, you might have to click the “show new tweets” bar or tweets might automatically refresh. For me just now, at the time of writing this, it only took 35 seconds for the top tweet to disappear below new ones. At that rate, 60 seconds sounds generous.

Nobody panic. [Read more…]

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