@AndySylvester I agree that whatever makes a conversation possible is the key part. If you think back about Dave's 1999 software, the software was great for writing & posting. And anyone could log on via Twitter and comment on any other person's postings. But there was no notification system! So I might comment on another's posting, but they might not ever notice my comment. This was not very conducive to real conversations. Whereas on Micro.blog, when someone commented on something I wrote, I saw it soon after in the Mentions tab and I could reply to it. Real communication could then develop.