

The Twitter Platform is Dead, Long Live the Twitter Social Network - kalisurfer
http://interactionandflow.com/blog/2013/3/7/the-twitter-platform-is-dead-long-live-the-twitter-social-network

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JohnTHaller
While the geeks were integral to Twitter's early success, they are mostly
irrelevant now as Twitter grows as a social network. The huge majority of
Twitter's current users have never coded for it and aren't even aware that 3rd
party apps exist. They simply create or (mostly) consume content.

Twitter may have needed the geeks and developers and folks who cared about an
open network creating something new in the beginning, but they don't need them
to become profitable now. It's similar to the way that power users and content
creators used to be integral to Apple since they were some of the larger
customers and influencers, but now that Apple is mainstream with the success
of the iPhone and iPad for regular consumers, the content creators and power
users make up tiny and still shrinking part of Apple's business.

The odd bit is that the hobbyists and geeks think they are still important to
Twitter and that by banding together and raising a fuss or leaving they will
impact it. Much the way content creators and power users still think they
could with Apple. They won't. They're such a small minority now, that they
don't matter anywhere near as much as they think they do.

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niggler
" the implicit contract it entered with its early users is null and void."

Does an API without a binding contractual agreement really imply future
applicability? It's always a big risk to lean on another company's API for
your product / business.

------
recursive
My impression of twitter remains unchanged. It is one of idle disinterest.
Once I was subscribed to a user that posted race results I cared about. Since
then, I haven't seen anything on twitter that I care about, not that I've
spent much effort looking.

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adventured
Fine article... 18 months too late to be relevant. Pretty sure this is a dead
horse being beaten.

~~~
kalisurfer
I rather be late than early and wrong. But yeah the first signs of it first
appeared in 2011 and now the trend is apparent.

~~~
garrickvanburen
Here's a bit I wrote in 2010 about Twitter's tightening controls
[https://garrickvanburen.com/archive/twitter-poured-cement-
in...](https://garrickvanburen.com/archive/twitter-poured-cement-in-a-bucket-
of-rocks/)

~~~
kalisurfer
You are from the future. Great prediction. Here is a piece i should have
written that looks at the trend across apps
[http://thenextweb.com/dd/2013/03/12/apis-are-dead-long-
live-...](http://thenextweb.com/dd/2013/03/12/apis-are-dead-long-live-apis/)

