Presumably to test the waters for introducing advertisements into our twitterfeeds (grrrr…), Twitter has today started to insert “tips” into my (& probably your) notifications. The first one I noticed was at 07.14 GMT:
Send ‘nudge username’ for someone you haven’t heard from at 07.14 GMT
then
Update from your mobile browser at http://m.twitter.com at 07.56
Send ‘nudge username’ for someone you haven’t heard from at 08.19
Go for a long walk. at 08.58
Reply with ‘stats’ to see how many people are following you at 09.44
Reply with ‘fav jangles’ to favorite this update. at 09.48
Reply with ‘help’ for a list of commands. at 10.01
Reply with ‘stats’ to see how many people are following you at 10.10
Reply with ‘stats’ to see how many people are following you at 10.32
See more at http://m.twitter.com/warzabidul at 10.37
Update from your mobile browser at http://m.twitter.com at 11.33
Reply with ‘fav robertbrook’ to favorite this update. at 11.36
Reply with ‘leave girlygeekdom’ to turn off updates from this person. at 11.41
which was spookily appended to an update from Sarah saying she didn’t like tips either…
not enough data yet to see whether their frequency is related to the frequency of my updates
of course the tip I really want to see is “Reply with ‘Hey Twitter, Don’t be Evil’ to turn off tips”
Perfect Path 
They’ve been trialling this in the US for a while, obviously they are now trying it out on the international SMS
Thanks Rachel, I thought I remembered a kerfuffle about it before – must have been that. It especially feels creepy to me the way that it uses the spare characters in short tweets – very parasitic – ugh!