[solaris999]

Isn't it a bit silly to throw away every single @<user> tweet? Imagine I'm having a twitter conversation with my friends about who can make the best pangram and this data is ignored just because we're tweeting @ each other?

I'm guessing that the majority of tweets will reference a person. How about just stripping that @word from the tweet?

[TheRedBarron]

Interesting. The issue I was getting was that it would like tweets that were "@MyFriendWhoHasAUserNameLikeZXCVBNMQWERTYU hey". Should I just strip it of the word "@____"?

[yathern]

That would absolutely be the way I'd suggest going about it.

[TheRedBarron]

Okay. Iteration is key! I'll update her maybe tonight. Thanks

[abecedarius]

I'd try stripping such words (and URLs) when they appear at the start or end of the tweet. If in the middle, removing seems likely to mess with the meaning.