twitmail is a curses-based mail-like interface to twitter. It also can be used as a command line app for sending and receiving tweets. In both modes it remembers the last thing you read and only shows you newer posts (ie, it reports nothing when you have no updates to read). It'll collect all the new posts as well (up to a configurable limit), to ensure you haven't missed anything important.
I wrote it originally so I could easily check for replies I may have missed during long absences. However, it can be used to track all the various updates types (not just replies).
The typical main reading screen:
It shows topic threads nicely!
# twitmail -l
---- replies ------------------------------------------------------------
01 Tue 13:58 b10m @hardaker So far so good (wondering if this tweet
ends up on the screenshot page ;-)
---- friends ------------------------------------------------------------
02 Tue 12:09 vaccine Heading to meeting.
03 12:40 b10m Photo: Mmmm food http://tumblr.com/xri1dk53n
04 13:58 @hardaker So far so good (wondering if
this tweet ends up on the screenshot page ;-)
# twitmail -r 1 yep. And this one should auto-add @b10m. I hope.
# twitmail -l
---- friends ------------------------------------------------------------
01 12:59 wilw my brain hurts like a warehouse.
02 13:00 hardaker @b10m yep. And this one should auto-add @b10m.
I hope.
twitmail is based on the perl Net::Twitter module.