Metal detectorist by macaz1977 © Flickr

Do you like to rummage?

Do you like to get to know people not just for what they are saying right now and a just a few days ago, but also for what they said months ago?

Don´t you ever wish you could investigate further back on Twitter more than the seven or so days that their own Search allows.

OK, so you can examine someones timeline on twitter.com but it´s not so easy to rewind.

Sure, you can click on more at the foot of the page. But it´s not all that useful.

You can do the following though:

Add ?page=XXX to the end of the URL of the Twitter user you want to research

http://twitter.com/paulgailey?page=130

Replace XXX for any number you wish.  The higher the number, the older the results that will be returned.

You can use any number up to 160, so the oldest date of the updates will vary depending on the degree of activity of that user.

If you are interested in the timeline of someone you just started to follow, you are sure to dredge up another gem in their timeline.

Mine that timeline.

Dredge it, sieve it, scan it, mudlark it, whatever you want to call it.

Because that way you can unearth something valuable to RT so it doesn´t go undetected and under appreciated.

Go find that needle in the haystack.

Go back in time.

Because history is important.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach. – Aldous Huxley