You might as well automate this. I believe it would not be a great undertaking. Also if your only concern was notifying the creator/owner, why would you not DM them on twitter? Or better yet, e-mail them with a bot that scrapes emails off the product site as an example?
Clearly, you guys are also trying to benefit from the increased publicity from using a public message "board" platform instead of a more private form of communication. I believe that may be the origin of some of these concerns. You guys aren't addressing the fact that you are doing this on a public platform to promote your site. Instead, you are still trying to argue that you are doing this completely independent of the traffic benefits....
Most people's twitter settings require that they follow you to DM them.
"e-mail them with a bot that scrapes emails off the product site"
Not a bad idea and we could make some educated guesses as to what the email address is (e.g. support@company.com). That said, we've found some founders aren't as quick to respond to email as they are on Twitter. I personally prefer the more ephemeral nature of Twitter for these type of notifications as my email inbox is already difficult enough to manage.
"Clearly, you guys are also trying to benefit from the increased publicity from using a public message 'board' platform"
We send direct @mentions to founders/startups on Twitter. These tweets will not surface in other's Twitter feed unless they're following both people.
Clearly, you guys are also trying to benefit from the increased publicity from using a public message "board" platform instead of a more private form of communication. I believe that may be the origin of some of these concerns. You guys aren't addressing the fact that you are doing this on a public platform to promote your site. Instead, you are still trying to argue that you are doing this completely independent of the traffic benefits....