3 ms·

The End of Third-Party Twitter Clients?

10 points by coloneltcb 8y ago

grizzles 8y ago
When do these developers say enough is enough? Twitter has behaved like an abusive husband to them for pretty much their entire relationship. Insofar as distributed web stuff goes, Twitter would be like the easiest ever service to swap out.
mindcrime 8y ago
For just a brief moment in time, recently, I thought Twitter had figured things out. They were at least making (roughly) the right noises about being developer friendly and acknowledging the importance of their developer ecosystem. Now, I see that they are just as fucking clueless as ever. If there was ever a company that needed a manic Steve Ballmer jumping around on stage while screaming "Developers, developers, developers!!!!", then Twitter is that company.
wmeredith 8y ago
I’ve been in awe of just how poorly a partner Twitter has been toward its developers ever since it first turned on them many years ago with the api token limiting. Consider that twitter’s blue bird mascot (that became their icon), most of their core features (dm’s @‘s etc...), and even the term “tweet” were all first hit upon and spread around by third party developers and an enthusiastic community of technorati using their clients. The debt the Twitter brand and feature set owes the developer community is larger than any other company I can think of... yet they continue to serve them up shit sandwiches, one after another. They have no shame.
kup0 8y ago
I think much of Twitter's success is owed to third-party developers, and now, despite a period of time where they seemed to change course, they're back to throwing them under the bus. I wouldn't mind moving to something like Mastodon, but even the most populated instance is a fraction of Twitter, and without critical mass moving somewhere else, I feel stuck. Then again, Twitter isn't a crucial need for me either, so I could close my account without much pain, other than being disconnected from people whose work I genuinely like to follow

10 points by coloneltcb 8y ago

When do these developers say enough is enough? Twitter has behaved like an abusive husband to them for pretty much their entire relationship. Insofar as distributed web stuff goes, Twitter would be like the easiest ever service to swap out.

mindcrime 8y ago

For just a brief moment in time, recently, I thought Twitter had figured things out. They were at least making (roughly) the right noises about being developer friendly and acknowledging the importance of their developer ecosystem. Now, I see that they are just as fucking clueless as ever. If there was ever a company that needed a manic Steve Ballmer jumping around on stage while screaming "Developers, developers, developers!!!!", then Twitter is that company.

wmeredith 8y ago

I’ve been in awe of just how poorly a partner Twitter has been toward its developers ever since it first turned on them many years ago with the api token limiting. Consider that twitter’s blue bird mascot (that became their icon), most of their core features (dm’s @‘s etc...), and even the term “tweet” were all first hit upon and spread around by third party developers and an enthusiastic community of technorati using their clients. The debt the Twitter brand and feature set owes the developer community is larger than any other company I can think of... yet they continue to serve them up shit sandwiches, one after another. They have no shame.

kup0 8y ago

I think much of Twitter's success is owed to third-party developers, and now, despite a period of time where they seemed to change course, they're back to throwing them under the bus. I wouldn't mind moving to something like Mastodon, but even the most populated instance is a fraction of Twitter, and without critical mass moving somewhere else, I feel stuck. Then again, Twitter isn't a crucial need for me either, so I could close my account without much pain, other than being disconnected from people whose work I genuinely like to follow