This past week has been kind of rough for Twitter, as the microblogging platform attempted to improve the system around @replies. Prior to the changes, users could view @replies between followers and those they follow, as well as the @replies from those they follow, even if they’re directed at someone else. This gave a decent amount of filter control for items showing up in Twitter streams, and enabled users to see multiple angles of a given Twitter conversation.

The importance of being able to see these different angles around Twitter correspondence between two or more people is that it also allowed for some level of user-discovery. Think of it as the ability to jump into a conversation that’s going on with a person you know, and their friend. Now you have an opportunity to introduce yourself into the conversation and make a new friend.

But Twitter has been tweaking the @replies in the past few days, causing an uproar, a full-scale Twitter revolt including a dedicated site, and a prompt repeal of the changed features on Twitter. A series of blog posts on Twitter explained the changes and the reasoning behind these changes, but in the end, Twitter is still looking to further modify the way @replies work. For the time being, a temporary fix has been put in place–only mutual friends (followers & folowees) can see an @reply posted by a Twitter user when the actual “Reply” button has been utilized. A tweet that has a mention (@username) and was created without using the “Reply” button will still be seen by all followers.

Whew!

So why are things so complicated? The @reply and the newly modified @username systems are confusing, and more importantly, they’re not fluid. As the most basic level, they work for their respective purposes. But utilizing these systems for meaningful conversation, complete with context and easy correspondence, is quite a task on Twitter. The popular microblogging platform is begining to overtake some of the activity we’re seeing in traditional blogs, instant messenger clients and email, so the necessity for fluid conversation is increasing exponentially on a daily basis.

To that end, there are a couple of things going on. Third party developers have been more forward-moving in their ability to provide additional context around a given conversation, though this is still a difficult task for the developer community, given Twitter’s own limitations. Additionally, Twitter has been ramping up the amount of new features its introducing to users, as the site has seen a great deal of growth in the past six months a lone and has officially become a mainstream product with mainstream expectations from investors and users alike.

A major missing key to Twitter is the ability to have a comprehensive conversation with one or more Twitter users, especially in the public forum of Twitter streams as opposed to direct messages. The the faster Twitter can figure out a way to retrofit its existing systems to work with our existing schema around web-based and mobile communication, the better we’ll all be.