Oh, I don't think I like this AT ALL. Twitter has just released information on their updated API and drastically changed the 'rules' that 3rd party developers can operate within. +HootSuite is by far my favorite Twitter and social media app (and they can manage Google+ Pages!). The part that will directly affect users like me and Twitter queens like +Cecily Kellogg is that now you can only make 60 API calls per hour compared to the 350 calls per hour you can currently send/receive. The user lookups and search will be allowed a rate of 720 calls per hour per-endpoint will CRUSH any Twitter functionality at large event or conferences.
From the article:
There’s no way to sugar coat it. These changes effectively kill off the growth of the third-party ecosystem as we know it. Twitter wants people to be using its official apps and seeing tweets exactly as they’re displayed both there and on the web version of Twitter. This has a lot to do with features like Twitter cards and advertisements, which in turn have a lot to do with Twitter’s partnerships with media companies and brands.
While a small sample study of tweets puts the number published via third-party clients at only 23%, that's almost 1 in 4 Twitter users that can be impacted by the new API rules. It can be argued that Twitter became popular in large part because of the developers that build applications when Twitter sat on the sidelines. Now that they (finally) want in the game, they are kicking those very people to the curb.
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Twitter sets max user caps for 3rd party clients and limits rates to direct users to official apps
Twitter has today announced user caps for third-party Twitter clients, effectively limiting the maximum number of users any outside client can ever have. It is also limiting the …
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Not cool at all
Mark this down. Today is the day that Twitter killed themselves. The Walled Garden approach only works, if your garden is stellar. It aint.
This just allows all the tweeters to migrate over to g+.
That just plain sucks. And it's not like their acquired desktop app is being rapidly advanced. Even their Android app doesn't have functionality that a lot of people ask for. Like muting tweets for a hash tag. Choice of great apps made twitter appealing and fun to use. If they force people to use an app they don't like or if they disrupt the experience of an app people enjoy using it'll eventually result in people not being happy with using Twitter as a whole. Like fb. Mobile app sucks == less time spent on fb. Twitter is shooting themselves bad.
Twitter can't answer our questions. It's just a website with no cognitive abilities. 🙁
Yup, this: "It can be argued that Twitter became popular in large part because of the developers that build applications when Twitter sat on the sidelines. Now that they (finally) want in the game, they are kicking those very people to the curb."
+Tim O'Reilly recommends that companies "create more value than they capture", and says that one of the early signs of the decline of a company is when they flip the switch the other way. Twitter is now flipping that switch, but an even earlier sign was years ago when they reneged on their promise to federate with other services like identi.ca.
+Michael Bernstein I honestly don't think Twitter started out this way. Investors. Shareholders. It ruins the best of them.
True story: when Ev Williams & Biz Stone worked at Odeo (that's where they came up with the idea for Twitter and started coding it) I worked with Biz on a project in Second Life. I was given an early beta account (not the account I use now) and had probably 6 friends that used it. They did it all FOR FUN. He was a riot and I loved working with him. I heard him speak a few years back right before he launched Square and he just seemed so corporate.
I know it didn't start out that way, but Twitter had the opportunity to be the biggest player in an open federated network, and turned away from that long before the Investors started twisting arms. After that, it was clear that they would eventually have to turn to advertising as a revenue source, and now they are shutting other developers out just to protect and grow their advertising revenue. How much longer before advertisers will be able to pay to send mass-DMs?
The least Twitter could do would be to let people pay for premium accounts that were ad-free.
In my (not importan at all) opinion, they just failed till now in creating a business model that ensures their role as a big player and maybe the third party devs success is perceived by them as a treat. Once they find that BM, things may change.
I guess it's just because most 3rd party apps are better than that off the official twitter app itself. Goes the same thing for FB as well. Too bad.
It was obvious things would go this way once Twitter rolled out "promoted" tweets and trends with seriousness. Once that happened, the writing was on the wall for 3rd party apps. I wouldn't be surprised if some 3rd party apps can get preferential quotas/access to data if they agree to display promoted material in whatever way Twitter demands, and subject their apps to auditing to make sure it works right.
+Scott Jones maybe they need to integrate with +Wolfram|Alpha so we can demand some answers. 🙂
+Thomas Hochmann I won't be happy until I can make an artificial intelligence sad by verbally abusing it. "YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE A SOUL!"
+Thomas Hochmann Then again, I never imagined in a million years that I'd own a piece of tech that I could ASK a question to verbally and have it answer me verbally, then I got a Nexus 7. Talk about surprise!
And Facebook ? It's the franticretreat ?