Twitter’s new hovercards are pretty useful. While they’ve been slowing rolling out for several weeks, everyone should see them now. They’re the overlays that come up when you hover over a Twitter username on Twitter.com. They’ve also exposed a rather interesting bug.

With Twitter’s Retweet functionality, when someone retweets a tweet, below that tweet is placed some text noting who retweeted that item (sorry, I know I just used “tweet” or “retweet” a dozen times there). That person’s name is a hyperlink to their Twitter account, so the hovercard function works for that name as well. But if you happen to be the person that retweeted the tweet, it says that “you” retweeted the item. And that “you” is still hyperlinked. But rather than “you” linking to your Twitter account, it actually links to @you.

And this guy does not like you.

@You, whose name is Wallace, hasn’t tweeted in almost a year. But his last tweet reads: “I kill people who nudge me“

Despite the no tweeting in a year, and only 62 tweets total, this guy has over 5,600 followers — likely thanks to this Twitter bug.

So no, @You isn’t retweeting everything in the Twittersphere. It’s just a bug that Twitter has somehow overlooked.

[thanks Owaeis]

Crunchbase

• TWITTER

Company: Twitter

Website: twitter.com

Launch Date: March 21, 2006

Funding: $1.16B

Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 (launched publicly in July 2006), is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post updates 140 characters long. Twitter “is a real-time information network that connects [users] to the latest stories, ideas, opinions, and news.” The service can be accessed through a variety of methods, including Twitter’s website; text messaging; instant messaging; and third-party desktop, mobile, and web applications. Twitter is currently available in...

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