DISQUS

Shawn Farner · 10 months ago

Twitter is the D-List actor that would get better roles and become more popular if he made smarter decisions and wasn't such a prick.

Daniel J. Pritchett · 10 months ago

Seesmic video reply from Daniel J. Pritchett

geechee_girl · 10 months ago

Kudos to Twitter if this is in fact the case. I've been waiting for them to put the kibosh on autofollow, autounfollow, Qwitter, FriendorFollow and other third party tools that promote spammy practices (even if the third party tool creators did not intend for that to be the case, they have done little to stop the abuse, so if Twitter does, good). Is putting the kibosh on autoDM on the list? Man, I hope so. Twitter works because of involvement of REAL PEOPLE. Automation is not real. obsession over follower and following numbers is not real. Linkbombing is not real. Twitter is ushering in an era of new business, and I hope they stick to their guns about the "real people" "real engagement" aspects of it now and in future. On the separate note of Twitter making money, I hope they don't sell follows, as was posited recently, but I hope they do start charging for SMS usage in excess of 20 Tweeters (for example, I get 30 people to my phone, so I would pay for the privilege of the extra ten), charge to get Track back, IM, etc - all the features we miss. Maybe charge for filtering too, so I could lose the annoying #tcot hashtag, for one... ;) They do lack some features, like search in your follower and following lists, things like that would be handy, and I did I mention how much I miss track?

william · 10 months ago

The Elephant in the room

If you are an Open Source Developer or Content creator (If you are a member of either service you are a content creator) you should not use Facebook or Twitter.

By using Facebook or Twitter you are essentially raising the value of their companies and applications. Both Facebook and Twitter are closed source content silos that do not allow you to control the content that you create. Neither Facebook or Twitter put the content creator/members at the top of their pyramids when thinking about revenue models. Each of these companies puts their Companies first above the members and communities that have given them value and money.

If you are a developer you may be able to make some money by creating applications for Facebook or Twitter ; but I do not believe that Facebook or Twitter will ever allow your application to eat into their user base or their revenue. Because they are both closed source companies that have the ability to literally cut you off by changing the code/api or by using their proprietary knowledge to build an application that you can not possibly compete with. As a coder understand that when you build and extend Facebook or Twitters propitiatory platforms that you undermine the longevity of the Open Internet.

Content owners and Developers do not help these closed source companies (Twitter and Facebook) in their goal of creating another closed source content trap that will extract hundreds of Millions on dollars from their member and developer communities and give nothing back in return.

funkyboy · 10 months ago

Louis,
let me highlight one of your passages:
"Even if there are products that are better, Twitter has the momentum. Twitter has the growth and the buzz."

So true! Let's skip the paradox in it (why there is better people choose that?).
I think such choice of limiting the number of requests negatively impacts
the momentum and the buzz.
Twitter didn't get famous because of third party applications, but _also_ thanks to those.
Developers can move towards other services/platforms (identi.ca?) maybe with multimedia
support like rejaw. In any case some service which guarantees certain conditions, like opensourceness or less restrictive limits to api access.

My 2$

charlieanzman · 10 months ago

Perhaps they're afraid of the newly released FF importer ??!! http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009/01/find-and-sub...

AnneHaynes · 10 months ago

That is the coolest importer ever! I love the "easy" button! I LOVE FF!!!

abrudtkuhl · 10 months ago

I definitely see this as a deterrent for current and future 3rd party developers. Twitter has some reasons be be thankful for all the third party apps that have helped its growth. Imagine if WordPress imposed limits on the plugins and themes? That would have stunted their growth years ago. I think they have two choices - add features to their service that 3rd party apps have proved are needed OR have unlimited API access (at least for whitelisted apps)

Jeremy Chone · 10 months ago

Indeed, it is risky to build a business model on top of a company that does not have one.

I like twitter, and I am planning to integrate with it, but I do not have high expectation until they found their own business model. Right now, we (any services integrating with Twitter) are just shooting in the dark.

I do not think that Twitter is to blame in this case. We just need to have the appropriate expectation.

Jean-Marc Liotier · 10 months ago

Why do you keep hoping about a proprietary service that has an intrinsic incentive to control the flow of information ? Their agenda obviously conflicts with yours. If you really want to interact with no arbitrary restriction, you need an open infrastructure. You already have an account at Identi.ca - so all you need to do now is to make sure that your social tool use the open microblogging network instead of Twitter. Joining the free world beats bitching about Twitter !

cwylie0 · 10 months ago

Twitter will definitely need to opening things up more, especially as they expand. If they don't supply as quickly as their ever-growing public demands, they will always be viewed as the group who could not quite keep up with their own popularity, which is unfortunate for them and the users. Plus, who restricts information flow? This isn't China.

AnneHaynes · 10 months ago

Boo on Twitter for being greedy closed source developers! I don't feel twitter should ask for money from users. I will not pay for all the functionality that @geechee_girl mentions in her comment. Twitter needs to fix their code to scale for all the other services using the API. Twitter there is enough money for everyone. Givers gain and takers toil!

I love automation and integration tools with Twitter. I think everyone uses Twitter differently. I don't have time to spend 8 hours behind Twitter using my mobile or my computer. Automation tools allow me to not be rude and automatically follow someone that follows me. I don't think spam is an issue either. If someone spams, I unfollow them - it's that simple.

@william thanks for bringing up the white elephant! Nice job!