Killing The Goose: Twitter Is Telling Developers Not To Build Client Applications

Twitter has an amazing API. You can create a wide range of ways to slice and dice Twitter data.

But when it comes to building applications that improve upon the Twitter experience,  Twitter wants to own that.

Read the full post:

Developers have told us that they'd like more guidance from us about the
best opportunities to build on Twitter.  More specifically, developers ask
us if they should build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream
Twitter consumer client experience.  The answer is no.

If Twitter developed better applications, it wouldn’t be an issue, right? Tweetdeck, awesome. Twitter mobile client, not so. I want to uninstall it, but I need it on the phone just to see what they’re doing for professional purposes.

Gaps in any market create new opportunities and innovation. This does not.

Innovation comes only with openness and the collaboration of great ideas, not building wall gardens and grabbing real estate. It’s rather disappointing to see companies talk about open standards and APIs, and then misusing User Experience as a shield for business reasons.

Twitter isn’t a vertical market like Apple — they are in the wild, with millions of other web services.

There will be more on this from me tomorrow morning. Stay tuned.