Last Friday @JeremyKendall tweeted for input on processing Excel files with PHP. The resounding recommendation from at least 4 people was to use PHPExcel. As the conversation continued the number of participants grew. Unfortunately, I had to cut out the others in my replies because instead of having 127 available characters (140 - jeremy's handle) it dropped down to below 80. The solution? Group reply shorteners. If you look at bit.ly and their bundle service of having group urls as a model this concept isn't insurmountable. Twitter already provides the shortest possibly url service and I would love to see them extend that to group messaging. While there are currently third party services that provide something similar, they are not a native Twitter offering and usually only for private groups.
After watching Demetri's talk Devoxx I could see how this feature would be able to integrate into their infrastructure in almost the same way they handle @ replies. Having a group reply shortener would have kept a brief, but interesting conversation, going.
As it turns out I am not the only one who thinks that group messaging and conversations are a growing trend.