As many of you have read, Twitter made an announcement about their API last night. Lots of blogs and news sites have reported on it, many spreading fear, doom, and gloom.
First of all, don’t worry. Our apps aren’t going anywhere. Millions of users love TweetCaster, Slices, SportCaster, and others, and we will continue to support, update and take them to 11!
In fact, while there are some restrictions from Twitter, we are much more comfortable today having their official guidance. For example, it looks like Twitter will be strict in requiring apps to display core Twitter functions properly. This is something we have always tried to be good about and will continue. There are also some real benefits such as improvements in rate limits and simply better clarification as to the rules of the game.
We remain committed to the Twitter ecosystem. Millions of users love our apps because of unique innovations that we have developed. For example, our new app Slices is the only place users can find “Explore”, a great new Directory of Twitter. And SportCaster provides sports related tweets to a Sports audience that otherwise would probably not be using Twitter. We will continue to innovate on the Twitter platform to help bring new people to the Twitter space.
So in the short-term, we’re pleased that we have the opportunity to grow our existing products, as the restrictions Twitter has imposed give us room to grow. In the longer term, we remain open to working with our friends at Twitter to make it an incredible platform and social network.
Okay, but what about things like ZipIt (muting), which is explicitly forbidden? And surely Slices’ unique views of Tweets violate the new requirements? How are you going to deal with the user cap?
Still working through exactly how, but we will be compliant with Twitter requirements. We have a large user base, so shouldn’t be impacted by user caps anytime soon.
Thanks for the update. You guys are my favorite app developer of any type. Keep up the good work.
I agree that although there are new restrictions, having clear communication about what the rules are is an improvement. This will allow a business to make better strategic decisions and give developers less opportunity to code into a dead end.
Happy to see your enthusiasm surrounding the changes.
Considering your optimistic stance displayed in this blog post, I am afraid you might not have grasped the consequences yet of what Twitter announced.
Or do you want to get poached by Twitter and are trying to be overly enthusiastic now because of this?
Nice