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I'm interested to see what Twitter actually does with the client. Do they EOL it and force a migration to their own official Twitter client? If so, what precede

I'm interested to see what Twitter actually does with the client. Do they EOL it and force a migration to their own official Twitter client? If so, what precedent does this set for other popular third-party client acquisition? If not, where do they go? Tweetdeck, despite the name, does more than just Twitter—though I'm sure the number of users accessing other networks through it is low—but they're going to need to bring it in-line with their monetisation strategy.

Lewisham 15y ago
To my untrained eyes, it looks like they're trying to consolidate the Twitter eco-system, going by their recent statements about third-party clients. I would expect TweetDeck to either live on as something like "Twitter Pro", or be EOL'd and the team rolled into Twitter (or even layoffs).
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Precedent is that if you get big enough to become a threat, they will buy you off.
- Lewisham 15y ago
  What "threat" was TweetDeck? All Twitter has to do is pull their API key, come up with some story about third-party clients, and that is that. Twitter has always been in the power position.
  - code_duck 15y ago
    It would be a very unpopular move, if nothing else. I don't know if TweetDeck has this much loyalty, but some companies in Twitter's position see 3rd party developers who grow large as a threat - members can grow to identify more with that developer than the underlying service.
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    Then why didn't they?
    - Lewisham 15y ago
      Multiple reasons: 1. Goodwill with developers might be worth more than $40m in the long run. I think the argument about users is fallacious: users will find something else (because there aren't any rivals to Twitter itself) and quickly forget. Developers don't forget as quickly. 2. Maybe they actually liked the software and wanted to distribute it 3. Maybe it was a talent acquisition Anyone who has a business built on an API to another service is completely at the whims of that service, and pretending that you form some form of "threat" to the host is a dangerous move. I would hazard that the only company that has ever grown large enough to strong arm the host was Zynga with Facebook (see Zynga/Facebook Credits).

Lewisham 15y ago

To my untrained eyes, it looks like they're trying to consolidate the Twitter eco-system, going by their recent statements about third-party clients. I would expect TweetDeck to either live on as something like "Twitter Pro", or be EOL'd and the team rolled into Twitter (or even layoffs).

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

Precedent is that if you get big enough to become a threat, they will buy you off.

Lewisham 15y ago
What "threat" was TweetDeck? All Twitter has to do is pull their API key, come up with some story about third-party clients, and that is that. Twitter has always been in the power position.
- code_duck 15y ago
  It would be a very unpopular move, if nothing else. I don't know if TweetDeck has this much loyalty, but some companies in Twitter's position see 3rd party developers who grow large as a threat - members can grow to identify more with that developer than the underlying service.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Then why didn't they?
  - Lewisham 15y ago
    Multiple reasons: 1. Goodwill with developers might be worth more than $40m in the long run. I think the argument about users is fallacious: users will find something else (because there aren't any rivals to Twitter itself) and quickly forget. Developers don't forget as quickly. 2. Maybe they actually liked the software and wanted to distribute it 3. Maybe it was a talent acquisition Anyone who has a business built on an API to another service is completely at the whims of that service, and pretending that you form some form of "threat" to the host is a dangerous move. I would hazard that the only company that has ever grown large enough to strong arm the host was Zynga with Facebook (see Zynga/Facebook Credits).