So I've got a crazy idea.
Could it be possible to make the translucent shortcut tiles work as live tiles for some apps by using APIs? I think it would be sort of like making each of those apps (like Twitter, Facebook, etc.) a client app where people sign in to your app, but having the translucent tile open up the official app.
In theory, that would be possible, but that would be like making a new Facebook app, twitter app, etc. Also, you'd still have notifications from the app, for which you are pinning shortcuts to the start screen.