Unlike Paul, I think this is kind of a dick move by Twitter. If you only use Twitter’s web site, then sure, it doesn’t much matter to you, but millions of people use other clients, especially mobile clients, and those will be affected and/or killed by this change. More importantly, the developers who created those clients have businesses built on them and those businesses could be toast.
It’s Twitter’s right to do this, of course, and it’s understandable from a business perspective, but with the dickbar fiasco and now this, Twitter has gone very quickly from a company many in the development community had great respect for to one that those same people are worried will screw them over.
Third-party developers made Twitter what it is. Even if you don’t use their clients, their apps enabled Twitter to be ubiquitous. Average Twitter users use the web site, but the influential Twitter users, and the devs, do not.
You’re right of course, that this will amount to little in the long run. Twitter is trying to build a service that will last, and if they have to piss off some nerds, they’ll do it. As with Apple and others, tech-obsessed folks miss the point of how to make a mass-market business work. I think they could have handled this much better, though, and probably could have achieved their goals without screwing over the people who helped them get there.
I’ve always hated twitter and never got much use out of ego broadcasting. However, as a somewhat tech-inclined person, I have never thought once that their interfaces were more usable than the third-party apps. This seems, well, dumber than twitter.
Re: your bolded statement in this post, Anthony: I think Twitter’s clients for Android and iOs are both more usable than just about any other mobile clients I’ve used.
You’re absolutely right about them handling it better, though.
@2 – I use their official app on iOS too, but it used to be called Tweetie, and it was a third-party app before they bought it. Lots of people are partial to Echofon, Twitterific, and others though, and those have their nice points too.
“As with Apple and others, tech-obsessed folks miss the point of how to make a mass-market business work.”
Kind of. They are just as entitled as anyone else to express their desires of how they want things to work. Movements like open source(which I have mixed feelings on) are as much about evangelizing as anything. Its not just about convincing Twitter or Apple to change as it is to convince regular users of their merits.
Paul, the only reason the iOS client exists is because there was a third party developer. Twitter bought AteBits and their twitter client Tweetie and Tweetie for Mac. Tweetie was rebranded as the official Twitter client and released a year ago. The reason that Twitter client is so popular is because a developer produced a client that was superior to using the twitter web site on the phone.
The iTunes reviews since 3.3.0 (the dickbar) and 3.3.1 (the slightly less terrible dickbar) have been overwhelmingly negative. Features have been removed or deprecated based on Twitter’s choices, and stability has decreased.
Power Users look to clients for tools and services to improve the 140 character experience. To use the URL shortener they want, the photo service they want, the RT/quoting method instead of the “retweet” platform method, alternative twitter search results, etc. With Twitter as the gatekeeper for services, and client functionality, will stagnate.
that, and from what i hear, their own app is crap compared to the 3P options.
I’m still waiting for the perfect app to let everyone know when I’m having a shit, and how it’s turning out, but I haven’t found it yet.
I don’t use Twitter, but agree with what Anthony is saying. I recall that for the longest time Twitter never had an official iOS app while their mobile usage grew by leaps and bounds. Now that they have the user base they’re kind of jamming a thumb in those 3rd-party devs’ eyes.
Speaking of Twitter I’ve been struggling for days to set it up through search to get some real time information about what’s actually going on in Fubar-shima. It just seems like hundreds of people reposting articles from Google News.
Insight? How do I focus Twitter on the ground level?
The only good use I’ve found for Twitter over the years is to have missives from Charlie Sheen text-messaged to my iPhone. And I don’t even need a special Twitter client for that!
What were all of you using it for before Charlie Sheen? Seriously, I’ve tried and failed to find it otherwise useful. What am I missing?
Maybe this will encourage people to stop using twitter because it’s retarded.