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Eridanus replied on November 14, 2008 18:21 to the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

troy832001:

Welcome to Get Satisfaction - and to the imperfect world of Twitter ;-)

Please visit the main thread - People Search is Disabled. Can't find my Friends! - for some excellent workarounds (I particularly like this one: even when it worked, People Search was never the easiest way to find friends on Twitter).

That's also the thread where your annoyance is most likely to be noticed.

PS: You're not going to like this - but account deletion isn't currently possible, either... :-|

troy832001 replied on November 14, 2008 17:54 to the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

Okay so I just signed up on Twitter, how about 2 days ago and have yet been able to add or search for friends. I am about to delete my account, since the only person I have on here is myself!!!! Did Twitter.com go backrupt or something!! This wouldn't have happened on MYSPACE!!!

A comment on the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

mdy - Even mdy is allowed to be sleepy once in a while ;-) – Eridanus, on November 14, 2008 17:46

A comment on the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

Oh, sorry. I didn't read your message properly! (I claim sleepiness as my excuse. It's 1:30am here!). I actually don't have a copy of my outgoing DMs. No magic trick up my sleeve, I'm afraid. – mdy, on November 14, 2008 17:37

A comment on the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

mdy - That's easy! ;-) It's the DMs you sent I'm intrigued about:
how do you (store and) search through your old outgoing DMs? – Eridanus, on November 14, 2008 17:20

A comment on the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

I don't know if you'd rightfully call it a "trick" but here's what I do.

I've set up a Gmail filter that automatically adds the label "Twitter DMs" to all incoming email that's:
a. from noreply@twitter.com and
b. has "Direct message from" in the subject

So when I want to search through the DMs sent to me, I just click the label "Twitter DMs" and from there it's easy to further constrain the search with a username or a keyword that I remember. 8-) – mdy, on November 14, 2008 17:10

A comment on the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

mdy - Just out of interest: Have you a trick for (storing and) searching through DMs you once sent? ;-) – Eridanus, on November 14, 2008 16:55

A comment on the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

Happy to help! 8-) – mdy, on November 14, 2008 16:52

PurelyCosmetics replied on November 14, 2008 16:47 to the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

mdy - great idea! I have my gmail forwarded to my regular mail, and delete the dms out of my regular mail - but they're still on gmail!!! Many thanks.

A comment on the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

Fwiw, there are still several alternative ways of searching for people. Details are available at this related thread. – mdy, on November 14, 2008 16:42

A comment on the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

PurelyCosmetics, fwiw, if I'm looking for a DM that I've received, I actually search through my email rather than through Twitter, since I usually delete DMs that are sent to me and I've set my Twitter account to send me a copy of all DMs sent to me via email. I don't know if it will be easy for you to search your mail, though. I use Gmail so it's easier. – mdy, on November 14, 2008 16:38

A comment on the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

Please visit the main thread - People Search is Disabled. Can't find my Friends!
- for some answers, for the most recent information and for some excellent workarounds
(I particularly like this one ;-).
That's also the thread where your posts and comments are most likely to be noticed. – Eridanus, on November 14, 2008 16:27

johnsurreal replied on November 14, 2008 16:19 to the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

Just join Twitter yesterday after hearing about it off and on over the months. But being new I liked the idea of searching people only to find it being disabled.

Reading some of the posts about this problem It seems that its something twitter won't fix any time soon. So I'm afraid not a very good start from Twitter in getting me to join up so I'm afraid I'll cancel my membership... buh bye twitter

earroyo replied on November 14, 2008 16:03 to the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

When is this problem going to get resolved?

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A comment on the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

Thanks mdy - one answer down. Wishing there was an easy way for DM's. – PurelyCosmetics, on November 14, 2008 15:20

kathleen started following the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter.

A comment on the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

Search in the bottom menu bar of most Twitter pages (e.g. http://twitter.com/home) jumps directly to Twitter Search, too.

If it were in the top menu bar instead (or as well), I'd remember that when I needed it! – Eridanus, on November 14, 2008 14:33

mdy replied on November 14, 2008 13:58 to the question "why can i not search for people" in Twitter:

Hi PurelyCosmetics. You can use Twitter Search to find @replies addressed to you as long as those replies are public.

Twitter Search can be found here: http://search.twitter.com

And to search for replies addressed to you, you just use the "to:username" operator.

For example, this link returns all public replies addressed to you: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=to...

DMs are a different story, though. Since those are private, they can't be found in Twitter Search.