What value did Meerkat offer Twitter? Were they paying for API access, or providing a positive public image for Twitter? Did they work with Twitter at all to get a blessing on their use of the API?

Wasn't the story at the time of shutdown that they were spamming social graphs with messages, sans the user's explicit permission?

This message sounds like so much spin; an attempt to get Meerkat back on the radar by playing the "poor me" card.