

Saying goodbye to SimplyTweet - fries
http://motionobj.com/blog/saying-goodbye-to-simplytweet

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hboon
I developed SimplyTweet.

Wow. I've never knew — but judging from a few emails I've got — I had some
users of SimplyTweet from HN. It's sad, but it was fun while it lasted.

~~~
matt_heimer
How much of a factor were the client limit and the API changes? I'd like to
better understand if this is just you moving on or if twitter has made it
impossible to continue your app.

~~~
hboon
Not impossible, but it's highly improbable to continue. The API changes aren't
the biggest factor, but it requires some changes across the entire app, and I
would like to take the chance to revamp a good part of it (It's major version
3, I've revamped it twice across the years already). Till now, they haven't
answered me on how many user tokens I have used up, so it's a big risk for me
to put in major effort, not knowing how much sales I can get in return.
There's also some technical issue users are facing that they have been very
slow to respond to (read: not yet), so frankly, I think I'm a low priority to
them anyway.

I remember when I was on honeymoon and my web host fired me an email about
blocking internet access because I was overloading their DNS server. I
explained my situation (hey it's a production site and I'm away on vacation)
and requested for them to keep me up for 4 more days when I'll be back home.
They refused and I had to worked on it at the hotel, while my newly-wedded
wife waited. I remember when I woke up in the night 2-5am, doing support,
replying to users. I was fanatic about supporting users well.

I loved what I did. But that love has waned. Why stay when you aren't welcome?

~~~
orn
You should consider moving it to App.net <https://alpha.app.net/>

~~~
hboon
I'm one of the earlier backers (userid: 886) and paid for the developer tier.
Haven't done any work on it yet. Once bitten, twice shy.

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dan1234
Twitter likely feel that it's easier to monitise users if they're using
official clients. The API and the early developers have served their purpose
in attracting enough users, now they're more of a hindrance so time to cut
them off.

I'm not saying I agree with this policy (I absolutely don't!).

~~~
eaxbin
I both understand and don't understand.

WHy don't they "just" serve ads using the API as well? And ad a line in the
EULA saying something like: "Not showing these ads will mean termination of
your Developer Account" or something like that

~~~
hboon
Looking at the product as it is now, offering an API for third party app
developers that clones the primary timeline browsing experience is a no-no
because Twitter gives up control over how they can craft their product
experience. For example, look at their official app's Discover tab. They can't
offer something like that and iterate quickly easily across all apps.

Serving ads through the API alone also limits ads delivery. For eg., they
might want to display full screen video ads like how iAds does it. Or they
even want to do something even more fancy (remember the dick bar? Imagine if
there was no third party Twitter apps when they launched it). Without complete
control, it's hard.

In a way, they are at stage 2 of their evolution, stage 1 was iterating on
their core product, now they need to iterate on their business model.

PS: I'm the developer for SimplyTweet. I'm biased, but I can imagine where
they might be coming from, even though I'm not happy about it.

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teamonkey
It's a shame. SimplyTweet was the only twitter client I've found that lets me
digest my twitter feed the way I want to. Now I need to look for an
alternative. And presumably repeat the process until all we're left with is
the standard client.

~~~
triplesec
Business model issues aside, It wouldn't be quite so bad if their standard
clients didn't suck so much! So, what are we going to migrate to? Vine?

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flixic
Twitter is succeeding with 3rd-party clients killing. Good job!

~~~
mehdim
They are killing the promise of Internet-as-a-platform... and open APIs trust.
[http://apijoy.tumblr.com/post/40831434657/twitter-api-and-
it...](http://apijoy.tumblr.com/post/40831434657/twitter-api-and-its-3rd-
party-ecosystem)

------
Zash
Another day, another old twitter app shuts down.

