TwitWave development for Twitter – Possibly no more

Unfortunately, it looks like I will not be able to finish TwitWave as a 3rd party app for Twitter, because of their new API policy. I had plans for it, but according to the new Twitter Terms of Service, it states that what I had planned is now against the new rules. It seems that Twitter doesn’t want to see anymore third party apps which show and use twitter in a different way. In the last 24/48 hours Twitter has announced that third party apps are not welcome any more. Twitter now have the publicity they wanted by allowing client apps to hook into twitter to display user timelines in a new fresh way, but are now essentially stealing the client base back from third parties. On top of that, they have stolen ideas. Many of the features offered in #NewTwitter and official apps could be found in third-party apps long before Twitter implemented them. This is because third party developers had ideas which just happened to catch on with users. It almost feels like Twitter does not approve of others having “better” features than them.

This announcement comes only a week or two after they threw UberTwitter (now known as UberSocial) and Twidroyd offline for a day or two. I do wonder that if throwing these clients off air was simply a test for twitter to see how many people would fall back to the “official apps”. Twitter got the response they wanted, for people to use them as their full time twitter application, but only because they had no choice — not for the reasons Twitter wanted. Instead users tweeted at the fact that they wanted these third party apps back, because they found they were a lot easier than the official apps or they used them before the official ones were released. As developers know, users have a hard time changing and that ultimately they would rather ditch you (in this case, twitter) than change to fit your needs.

Twitter are now just enforcing their power over the ecosystem by shutting down the flexibility of using the API with other APIs that are out there which can help make twitter a better place. By not allowing these other APIs, twitter can force their promoted tweets, trends and anything else they can put money to. This is ultimately for twitter to become a profitable company and the end user is just seen as a cash cow. Twitter is great for getting news out instantly; think of what just happened out in Japan. We all knew the devastation of the country just minutes before and after it all happened and we are getting updated now about the situations developing around the country. Twitter links us to YouTubes and TwitPics from people we do or even don’t know. This has made twitter invaluable to breaking news. The majority of third party apps allowed these people to upload to YouTube and other sharing sites while they were tweeting, but all we see in the “official apps” is the ability to add our location to tweets and add a random picture from our camera collection.

This restriction of “no third party apps that mimic twitter” that is now imposed upon the API will also hinder disabled people. In a conference announcing the new twitter web client which was being streamed live online, they were made aware of possible accessibility problems with #NewTwitter before the rollout, and said we shall leave any “accessibility issues up to the community” (clients like Quitter, Accessible Twitter and such are classed as this) yet twitter expressed there will be no exceptions to this API rule. This leaves me to question how the community can help in this area when Twitter refuses to allow or even discuss such an exception. But as with most places, accessibility is left until last and the general thought is, “ah well, if they leave it wont be a big hit to us”. Facebook thought this with one of their redesigns and the community at large rose up and ultimately forced Facebook to implement some accessible features again.

Twitter are so determined to not be anything like Facebook, yet by having this locked-down, closed attitude, they actually make Facebook look more appealing to both users and developers. In the end, people will turn to not only Facebook but other, more OPEN microblogging systems like StatusNet (Identi.ca). Perhaps Twitter needs to accept that a business model change might be necessary and must realize that welcoming developers is essential for creating a satisfying user experience. Twitter would be nothing without users and without third party developers, a huge majority of Twitter’s user-base would not exist. In the end we all NEED each other. I do hope Twitter listens to user/ developer feedback and revises their policy before people start going elsewhere. Users won’t put up with being used to make a buck just as developers won’t put up with being used for feature ideas.

At the end of it all, status.net’s API shares most features with Twitter’s API, and third party developers might just move over to identi.ca if we all wish to continue development for Twitter-like services and leave Twitter to sit on its own inside their heavily gated ecosystem.

Sources:
http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/browse_thread/thread/c82cd59c7a87216a
http://arstechnica.com/software/news/2011/03/twitter-tells-third-party-devs-to-stop-making-twitter-client-apps.ars
http://mashable.com/2011/03/12/twitter-api-clients/