Fundamentally, the problem is that usage of twitter is both as a social network and an easy to use messaging protocol. Twitter wants you to use it solely as a s

Fundamentally, the problem is that usage of twitter is both as a social network and an easy to use messaging protocol. Twitter wants you to use it solely as a social network, because that's where the money is. It's unfortunate because it was a hugely useful platform for "protocol" uses. It's an easy way to tie together two incompatible systems, and a good way to provide automated notifications without additional clients.