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Another example of Twitter taking steps to kill their platform dreams and push developers away. So much for Jack's renewed push for improved developer relations

Another example of Twitter taking steps to kill their platform dreams and push developers away. So much for Jack's renewed push for improved developer relations.

yeukhon 11y ago
Well this is on the front-page now. maybe he will scream at the team and say "don't shut it down."
- pc86 11y ago
  I don't think Jack gets his news from HN.
  - yeukhon 11y ago
    He may or may not, but I wouldn't doubt their PR team already pinned HN as a source to consume. Plus there is https://twitter.com/newsycombinator https://twitter.com/newsycombinator. #twitter, definitely.
- aioprisan 11y ago
  You mean like they shut down the Twitter share counter data right after Jack had a big conference once he came back as CEO promising better developer relations? So, I doubt they care about the state of developer relations, as a platform.
mattzito 11y ago
This is a situation where one developer had a special exception carved out for them for a non-commercial project that everyone thought was cool. That access persisted for three years until someone made a decision that giving free access to something that normally they charge quite a lot of money for is not worth it. Twitter offers several free endpoints for developers, including search, streaming, a raw sample of tweets, and the like. They all have rate limits and the like attached, but they're real, free, access to their data. For people who want bigger, broader, deeper access, they sell access to that data. That's been the case for the last few years. In this case, Emojitracker unfortunately falls into the cracks in between, where they need deeper access to do what they want, but it's not a commercial enterprise. I agree, it would be nice of Twitter to continue giving Emojitracker free access, but are they obligated to do that? They are a business, and providing access to millions of Tweets for free seems like an unfair obligation to ask them to continue indefinitely.
- pyre 11y ago
  > They are a business, and providing access to millions of Tweets for free seems like an unfair obligation to ask them to continue indefinitely. While not indefinitely, it would certainly help the case to just public a cost-benefit analysis of how much Emojitracker's access was costing Twitter (though not in terms of "lost revenue" based on what Emojitracker would have been paying for that access).
  - mattzito 11y ago
    I don't see that as Twitter's obligation. When someone does you a favor, or makes an exception for you, it's nice if they give you a reason when they end it, but it's not their responsibility.
    - pyre 11y ago
      No, it's not their responsibility. I'm just saying that PR-wise it could have been a good move to just say, "Hey, it's costing us $X/month to give you an exception for this access. Sorry, but we can't justify that cost going forward." Are you saying that it would have been a bad move for them to say that?
  - qubex 11y ago
    Who says they didn't perform the kind of cost/benefit analysis you mention and estimated that it wasn't worth the effort? And if that was their estimation, despite our (NH denizens) collective annoyance, maybe they were right. Maybe providing free access made prospective paying customers less likely to pay for firehose access, or a slew of not-for-profit organisations requesting free firehose access citing emojitracker as a precedent. There's a myriad of hypotheticals and whomever made this decision is not necessarily irrational... it just depends on what constitutes their utility function.
    - pyre 11y ago
      I was saying that maybe it would have been a good idea for them to publish that analysis publicly, or just to emojitracker (where they would presumably publish it for Twitter).
ChuckMcM 11y ago
It feels to me like "kill platform dreams" is written on the other side of the coin that says "sustainable business model". It is a serious challenge that the data has some value, but that value is hard to extract usefully as a revenue stream. The emojitracker folks won't pay much, but offering it to them at a small rate vs a high rate to some other service has its own issues. But since emojii tracker isn't real time, could they use a month old firehose? 6 months old? At some point the value of the firehose access falls off for "mainstream" users of that data, does it fall to a point where there is marginal value in giving free access to others on it? Even for small dollars? Clearly as a public company Twitter has to do what it can to get good value for the assets it has created. That is a hard thing to do.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  At the risk of sounding pedantic: Twitter's assets were created by its users, not the company. They alienate the users, there are no more assets and no more value to be had.
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    I think we see it a bit differently. When the grocery store chain sells information about the buying habits of its customers, it is the customers doing the buying, but it was the collection and monitoring systems that "created" the information. Twitter has "users" but those users are not the "customers". Twitter created a watering hole so that it could interest nearby predators in access to where the herbivores would be on hot days. To be counter-pedantic (is that a word?) If there were anywhere else for Emojitracker to get their data, then I would agree with you that Twitter did not create it.
    - Jordrok 11y ago
      I think that watering hole analogy is the the best explanation of the online ad industry that I've heard in quite a while.
Sarkie 11y ago
The problem I see with Twitter and the reason it stagnated and isn't making money, is they don't really understand their platform and users. Flip that with Snapchat who 100% do know their users and converting them into customers.
- c0nducktr 11y ago
  What does converting users into customers mean for snapchat? What are they selling?
  - bsamuels 11y ago
    filters i suppose
  - surfaceTensi0n 11y ago
    I'm pretty confused by that as well. Isn't Snapchat making their money off advertising primarily? I know they have plans to expand the kind of user data they track (including "browsing and searches beyond the app"). http://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/is-snapchat-on-the-verge-of-its-facebook-moment/ http://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/is-snapchat-on-t...
- tangled_zans 11y ago
  Hmm, do YOU understand Twitter's platform and users? If you have some cool insights into those things then I'd love to hear them!

Another example of Twitter taking steps to kill their platform dreams and push developers away. So much for Jack's renewed push for improved developer relations.

yeukhon 11y ago

Well this is on the front-page now. maybe he will scream at the team and say "don't shut it down."

pc86 11y ago
I don't think Jack gets his news from HN.
- yeukhon 11y ago
  He may or may not, but I wouldn't doubt their PR team already pinned HN as a source to consume. Plus there is https://twitter.com/newsycombinator https://twitter.com/newsycombinator. #twitter, definitely.
aioprisan 11y ago
You mean like they shut down the Twitter share counter data right after Jack had a big conference once he came back as CEO promising better developer relations? So, I doubt they care about the state of developer relations, as a platform.

mattzito 11y ago

This is a situation where one developer had a special exception carved out for them for a non-commercial project that everyone thought was cool. That access persisted for three years until someone made a decision that giving free access to something that normally they charge quite a lot of money for is not worth it. Twitter offers several free endpoints for developers, including search, streaming, a raw sample of tweets, and the like. They all have rate limits and the like attached, but they're real, free, access to their data. For people who want bigger, broader, deeper access, they sell access to that data. That's been the case for the last few years. In this case, Emojitracker unfortunately falls into the cracks in between, where they need deeper access to do what they want, but it's not a commercial enterprise. I agree, it would be nice of Twitter to continue giving Emojitracker free access, but are they obligated to do that? They are a business, and providing access to millions of Tweets for free seems like an unfair obligation to ask them to continue indefinitely.

pyre 11y ago
> They are a business, and providing access to millions of Tweets for free seems like an unfair obligation to ask them to continue indefinitely. While not indefinitely, it would certainly help the case to just public a cost-benefit analysis of how much Emojitracker's access was costing Twitter (though not in terms of "lost revenue" based on what Emojitracker would have been paying for that access).
- mattzito 11y ago
  I don't see that as Twitter's obligation. When someone does you a favor, or makes an exception for you, it's nice if they give you a reason when they end it, but it's not their responsibility.
  - pyre 11y ago
    No, it's not their responsibility. I'm just saying that PR-wise it could have been a good move to just say, "Hey, it's costing us $X/month to give you an exception for this access. Sorry, but we can't justify that cost going forward." Are you saying that it would have been a bad move for them to say that?
- qubex 11y ago
  Who says they didn't perform the kind of cost/benefit analysis you mention and estimated that it wasn't worth the effort? And if that was their estimation, despite our (NH denizens) collective annoyance, maybe they were right. Maybe providing free access made prospective paying customers less likely to pay for firehose access, or a slew of not-for-profit organisations requesting free firehose access citing emojitracker as a precedent. There's a myriad of hypotheticals and whomever made this decision is not necessarily irrational... it just depends on what constitutes their utility function.
  - pyre 11y ago
    I was saying that maybe it would have been a good idea for them to publish that analysis publicly, or just to emojitracker (where they would presumably publish it for Twitter).

ChuckMcM 11y ago

It feels to me like "kill platform dreams" is written on the other side of the coin that says "sustainable business model". It is a serious challenge that the data has some value, but that value is hard to extract usefully as a revenue stream. The emojitracker folks won't pay much, but offering it to them at a small rate vs a high rate to some other service has its own issues. But since emojii tracker isn't real time, could they use a month old firehose? 6 months old? At some point the value of the firehose access falls off for "mainstream" users of that data, does it fall to a point where there is marginal value in giving free access to others on it? Even for small dollars? Clearly as a public company Twitter has to do what it can to get good value for the assets it has created. That is a hard thing to do.

Karunamon 11y ago
At the risk of sounding pedantic: Twitter's assets were created by its users, not the company. They alienate the users, there are no more assets and no more value to be had.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  I think we see it a bit differently. When the grocery store chain sells information about the buying habits of its customers, it is the customers doing the buying, but it was the collection and monitoring systems that "created" the information. Twitter has "users" but those users are not the "customers". Twitter created a watering hole so that it could interest nearby predators in access to where the herbivores would be on hot days. To be counter-pedantic (is that a word?) If there were anywhere else for Emojitracker to get their data, then I would agree with you that Twitter did not create it.
  - Jordrok 11y ago
    I think that watering hole analogy is the the best explanation of the online ad industry that I've heard in quite a while.

Sarkie 11y ago

The problem I see with Twitter and the reason it stagnated and isn't making money, is they don't really understand their platform and users. Flip that with Snapchat who 100% do know their users and converting them into customers.

c0nducktr 11y ago
What does converting users into customers mean for snapchat? What are they selling?
- bsamuels 11y ago
  filters i suppose
- surfaceTensi0n 11y ago
  I'm pretty confused by that as well. Isn't Snapchat making their money off advertising primarily? I know they have plans to expand the kind of user data they track (including "browsing and searches beyond the app"). http://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/is-snapchat-on-the-verge-of-its-facebook-moment/ http://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/is-snapchat-on-t...
tangled_zans 11y ago
Hmm, do YOU understand Twitter's platform and users? If you have some cool insights into those things then I'd love to hear them!