

Twitter “Screwed Up” With Developers, Founder Says - abraham
http://gigaom.com/2010/11/17/twitter-screwed-up-with-developers-founder-says/

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aaronbrethorst
To quote BSG: "all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen
again."

[http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/Watson_Developer_Spea...](http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/Watson_Developer_Speaks_Out_Against_Apple_Plans_Port_To_Windows/)

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pyre
Also:

* Apple 'Spotlight' vs. LaunchBar/Butler (don't remember of QuickSilver existed at the time, but it's largely surpassed Spotlight's functionality)

* Apple 'Dashboard' vs. Confabulator (aka Yahoo! Widgets)

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danilocampos
Oh yeah, Quicksilver's heyday was back then. I ditched QS for a day once
Spotlight came out. Spotlight was pig slow, so I went back to Quicksilver
until Leopard, years later.

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adrianwaj
Twitter has now realized it's a platform company. Wow.

Dick C - here's what Twitter should do:

\- give users the choice to use any number of third-party interfaces, but
implemented into the main site.

\- give users the choice to install add-ons into any or all of these
interfaces on the main site: like with the Facebook.

\- have a pool of funds allocated to be distributed to developers based on the
popularity of their apps and interfaces.

\- If Twitter doesn't do this, a third party could come and create a platform
on a platform. If they're too successful they'll either be acquired, copied or
choked by Twitter. For the latter two, they can split entirely with Twitter
and compete in this micro-messaging space, and aim to make it useful for
inter-machine messaging too.

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yu549
Not really. Aside from a few simple applications (e.g. photos like TwitPic,
etc.), the normal user doesn't really use any other third-party app. Have you
seen oneforty? It's dying.

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adrianwaj
No one has time for it.

Why not take something like oneforty and embed it into twitter.com, and make
the apps more like plugins. I'd straight away install anti-spam.

They could even model this system after a combination of wordpress.com and its
large userbase with customization options, and wordpress.org self-
installations, with a new nicely integrated plugin directory and manager.

I'd go far as to say, if I could start a startup tomorrow with many resources
at my fingertips, I'd compete with Twitter in this way. (well I'd hold onto
Twitter at first, but then let go once I have enough momentum. I'd also try
and ride FB.) It's a no-brainer (at least to me). If they want to make Twitter
ubiquitous (as was envisioned by Ev or Biz), it will need to improve in many
areas, one even being a possible network layer.

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Multiplayer
Who here is developing products relying on Twitter for their primary data
stream today?

They had the world by the tail.

~~~
irons
Who keeps the world by the tail for longer than that? One or two companies a
decade?

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code_duck
Fred Wilson wrote an article at one point about how fantastic he thought it
was that Twitter was screwing over their development community, and how the
things were moving to the next stage for third party Twitter developers.

Has he re-evaluated his stance on that? Are FW and WE in agreement? I can't
even really tell what this article is saying.

