> We've already seen that people who use this new feature tend to Retweet and Tweet more, creating more live commentary and conversations

I really don't like this trend. The same thing happened with facebook with notifications. They looked at the data and figured that when people have notifications they tend to open the app more. Then started to send tens of unwanted notifications every day. (Which comes from eg. groups that I never joined, or games etc.) Result: hard blocking notifications from the mobile OS level.

I hope twitter doesn't follow the same path. (Actually they already do this at some level with 'your friend x & y liked tweet z' notifications)

These retention things just kill the apps that I already love. But since the trend is this way, it is probably working out for majority of people and not for me.