There are, or at least were, as i recall many social more social lists that did talk about things like 'what one had for breakfast?' and such. I'm not subscribed to them now and my current archives on this machine are only back to 2006 in incoming, but, that said, even in those archives i have over 3500 mentions of breakfast. I suspect in 2000, from one particular list, i would easily have had that many in a year. that said... twitter isn't scholarly communication any more than email. either can be, neither need be and the conventions and norms of both are far more expansive, which is why on both, netiquette operates much the same way. you manage your own and are not supposed to make claims on others. if you don't like something on twitter, you can stop following the person, much like if you do not like something on an email list. for instance, i dislike it when on twitter people follow and unfollow me repeatedly, like on email where if someone were joining and leaving a list i manage, i could block them, on twitter, i can block them and the problem is resolved. thus, from my position, status updates are much like little public emails. they are driven by the people on the ends, doing what they do and people following, or not. there is little need to reinvent the wheel of analysis on this one.