Django: create an internal twitter like wall

I'm building开发者_如何学运维 a multi user system and I'm creating an somewhat experimental idea for the users to interact.

The site is for professional actors so they can post up their profile and so casting directors can find them. All that is going fine.

What I now want to do it create a wall/twitter group area where people can post short messages just like in twitter.

I'm developing all this in Django and while I have a really good Django developer working on the site, I've decided to take on this part myself. I'm relatively new to django, I have 10 years PHP/Java experience.

I've set up the basics of posting a message and parsing urls etc. What I want to do now is create a reply to and a direct message feature.

Is there any other projects out there that would have done something similar to this that could help me in not re-inventing the wheel completely.

Also on a general note as an idea, any suggestions as to what to do different considering my environment and audience.

Check out Trillr (including considering binning any work you've done and just including this wholesale, open-source licence permitting).