It feels like a fairly passive aggressive message. Kicking off with a "blame the victim" jibe in the homework line (I'm not commenting on whether they are actually the victims here, merely the phrasing), it strikes an initial tone of "this is their fault, not ours".
Moving on to an entirely disingenuous non-apology ("i'm sorry you were offended" vs. "i'm sorry I offended you"), it doesn't get much better. Then on to an appeal to authority - we tried it with other developers and they didn't care at all.
The thing is, I can't criticise from a business level. I have no idea what their internal world looks like (we can all have our own guesses). But the message is inept at best. The upshot is that it's hard to imagine anyone building something (innovative or not) on the Twitter platform. If it's within the TOCs today, would this message give you confidence that it will be next week?
By attempting to kick out half of your hangers on, you end up kicking out all of your hangers on. Seems like a lesson worth heeding for giants and hangers on alike.
> “We continue to spend an extraordinary amount of money providing a free API” that’s being accessed at “a ridiculous rate of queries per second.” As Twitter continues to build out its platform, it will do so in an open way, he added.
If the proportion of API calls are increasingly from Twitter's own apps, does that count?
Also related, this quote from @dickc:
> Twitter's committed to stay open & is building free tools to access the stream, saying it's closing misses bigger picture
Maybe I am indeed missing the big picture but I feel like their words aren't matching up with their actions. Unless they mean they'll be open to consumers and getting more users onto the network, without consideration to third-party developers who want to create their own vision on top of the API.
(I acknowledge that Twitter has the right to do all this and more--that's not my point.)
Well, the question being raised by Costolo is, "why don't we know what the big picture is yet, are you just holding it over our heads?"
I've said since the beginning of these recent actions that there's going to be another shoe to drop (the last weeks' actions all being the first shoe). I'll say now that "the big picture" he mentions but neglects to describe is indeed this other shoe.
Thank you tech crunch, I'm now more confused than before. So, what does the homework quote have to do with anything. Either IFTTT is allowed to use the Twitter API or they are not. I don't see how a laziness accusation is relevant.
For what it's worth, the policy changes ship with changes to the API. TechCrunch published an article yesterday stating that IFTTT was in violation of Twitter's policy for "months," so it'd be a fair assumption that this is along that same channel.
For what it's worth, sometimes a policy/api change is a paper tiger. When Twitter decided to do the cutoff on the 27th, that made it legit. No sense scaring users earlier than you have to.
I wonder what would have happened if twitter had said all free accounts must use the twitter app or website, and pro-accounts (let's say $5/month) can use the full API with 3rd party apps?
$5 a month would be totally worth it for a lot of people. Even with promoted tweets, etc., I think people would go for it.
Charge, but let people do whatever they want with their own data ... give them access to their full history of their own tweets and maybe some other advanced features. Meanwhile let everyone use twitter.com for free if they want.
So rather than clarify the new Twitter Policies, it would be more interesting to be told why they are making these changes.
Everyone is assuming it's because they want to lock down their platform... & lock it down along what seem pretty moveable and arbitrary lines. Why else would they do it? I'm a casual observer, but I have been following pretty carefully, and it's completely unclear to me.
So -- If it's not, they should just say. If it is, the Twitter developer ecosystem has plenty of reason to be worried about their homework.
My guess is that they want full control. If you look at Apple it is clear that there are huge advantages in having this control. Not only is it possible to build a better and more streamlined experience, it's also much easier to monetize a Twitter that they fully control.
They found really difficult to monetize their product, since it's only composed of 140 characters displayed in a moltitude of format.
Now they will directly control the way tweets are displayed, for example they will soon introduce the Twitter Card format (a sort like the facebook wall story with picture/video/flash game embedded)
Think of the several monetization "experiments" of Facebook: ads, sponsored likes, sponsored posts, page offers, ecc
They were been possibile only because Facebook manage the way his data is displayed across all platform.
Fundamentally, the problem is that usage of twitter is both as a social network and an easy to use messaging protocol. Twitter wants you to use it solely as a social network, because that's where the money is.
It's unfortunate because it was a hugely useful platform for "protocol" uses. It's an easy way to tie together two incompatible systems, and a good way to provide automated notifications without additional clients.
Even a charity has the right to do what they want (sans contracts).
The outrage is because they changed their possession and it's serving as a warning to other developers who are interested in developing on their platform. It's important to point out when a business is hostile or friendly to API developers so they'll know if it's worth their time to develop a product based on said API.
Nobody I've read is claiming they have a right to access Twitter API. Twitter is legally entitled to do whatever the hell they want. Most of what I've read falls in one of two categories:
1) Criticism of Twitter for implementing a policy that has generated so much ill-will for the company, and essentially prevented 3rd party devs from solidifying Twitter as a kind of a microblogging platform of the Net. Clearly Twitter believes this will serve them better. Most people disagree.
Moving on to an entirely disingenuous non-apology ("i'm sorry you were offended" vs. "i'm sorry I offended you"), it doesn't get much better. Then on to an appeal to authority - we tried it with other developers and they didn't care at all.
The thing is, I can't criticise from a business level. I have no idea what their internal world looks like (we can all have our own guesses). But the message is inept at best. The upshot is that it's hard to imagine anyone building something (innovative or not) on the Twitter platform. If it's within the TOCs today, would this message give you confidence that it will be next week?
By attempting to kick out half of your hangers on, you end up kicking out all of your hangers on. Seems like a lesson worth heeding for giants and hangers on alike.