The only difference that twitter provides is that the state of your washing machine is publicly broadcast, for everyone to see. I'm not sure why that's such a

The only difference that twitter provides is that the state of your washing machine is publicly broadcast, for everyone to see. I'm not sure why that's such a value add that encourages the creation and use of these kinds of services more so than the ability for your washing machine to send you an SMS, IM, or email and having it remain private. I mean, if someone were to create a tool tomorrow that monitors various things and notifies you of when they change (nagios for real-life?) would anyone use it if it didn't have a twitterable component or twitter integration?