In reply to Andy Turner.

Hadn't come across OStatus before but it looks interesting. Will need to dig a little further. The point about conversations on Twitter is an interesting one and there are certainly disparate views. I think the point is that different people need different views. Twitter as a transport protocol (rather than a user service) doesn't natively support the conversation. Or at least it doesn't unless people use the @reply button in a compliant client. This is the most irritating thing for me, not being able to track conversations after the fact. Interestingly where I link to Scoble's answer on Quora above its the one thing he absolutely thinks is the wrong thing to do. I think this is driven by the way he uses social media and he doesn't have the perspective that some of the rest of us have but his point is worth taking seriously.