Reply_count

[DanielCHood]

Now that the number of direct replies is included in the Twitter UI, would it be possible to get that data through the api similar to retweet_count and favorite_count?

[andypiper]

I’ll pass that feedback along, but at the moment I don’t know of a specific plan to add that to the Tweet object. Worth looking into.

[DanielCHood]

While you’re passing my requests along, it’d be nice if we could search tweets based on the tweet they’re in reply to. Basically I’d like to pull stats for my 50 most recent tweets, calculate the ones with the highest engagement (favorites+retweets which I already do but now I’d like to include replies). Then I’d like to generate a list of the people that retweeted (already do), a list of the ones that favorited (I made this request recently), and now a list of people that replied so that I can easily reply back to them, retweet, or like their replies.

Hope I’m not asking for too much

[andypiper]

I’d say that the search request is less likely than the other one, to be honest, but for sure, I’m taking a note!

[tomelliott0]

Yes! I too would love to see the API return reply count in a similar manner to favourite_count and retweet_count. Currently we have to loop through tweets with the same reply_to ID which in many cases is not feasible and will soon hit rate limits, as well as creating unnecessary lookups

This would be useful to so many 3rd party Twitter apps, as number of replies is a good indicator of engagement and could encourage users to converse if they can more easily see active conversations. My https://socialbearing.com/ site for example allows tweet search results to be ordered and filtered by number of retweets and favourites. I would love to be able to add replies (just a basic count) to the site

If the Twitter UI and app now have a way of easily displaying reply count, I would hope it should be possible to make available via API

Thanks

[andypiper]

It is of course possible, but not something we have yet planned or prioritised. Understand the reasons why this is of interest and value, so I’ll see whether we can make any changes in this area in the future.

(also note the small print of the support docs here - the number you see is the number of replies to the original Tweet in the thread, not all of the Tweets in the thread, just for clarity!)

[tomelliott0]

Thanks Andy!

[richardhyland]

Whilst reply count would be useful I’m not sure of its value without the ability to actually get the replies. Although an api for that would be insanely useful!

[DanielCHood]

It’s equally useful as the favorite_count field since you can’t get that list either. I agree with your point though which is why I requested both (all three actually) features.

[IgorBrigadir]

search tweets based on the tweet they’re in reply to

You can sort of do this “manually” - Using the Search API, look for any tweet that’s with to:DanielCHood as a query for example, having your own tweet ids, count the replies to them using in_reply_to_status_id fields of the search results. Or rely on your User Stream https://dev.twitter.com/streaming/userstreams#replies

Would definitely help to have a reply_count property though!

[Graham_Duncan]

+1 on this feature request. Would reply_count tally be available as a premium feature (or would it be possible to obtain it via Premium search in a way that could not be done with free-tier search)?

In my opinion, reply_count endpoint for a given status would be so helpful it would justify a subscription to your Premium service (just my $0.02, but I’m happy to give you my other $149.00 too ).

[andypiper]

Yes, this data value is part of the premium API Tweet objects. There are currently no plans to extend it outside of the premium and enterprise tiers.

[cstesto]

+1 on adding a reply_count, too. Seems odd that there’s a favorite_count and retweet_count on the free tier but no reply_count. Particularly when all 3 are the core fields displayed directly on Twitter.

[andypiper]

There are no plans for this field to be reflected in the standard API.