There comes a time in a young tech company's life when it shifts from being an idealistic and quirky service to one that's more focused on making money.
That time appears to have come for Twitter, as the company is instituting some changes that are ticking off many of its users and could affect how you access the service.
Specifically, Twitter has new rules for the use of its API, or "application programming interface." That's Twitter's code and must by used by anything that accesses Twitter.
These new rules include mandatory authentication, the number of times applications can pull data from Twitter per hour, requirements that apps display tweets exactly as Twitter does and a limit of up to 200,000 users per app.
So if an app or service doesn't play by Twitter's rules, they won't be able to access Twitter at all.
The reason this has so many people up in arms is because plenty of apps display Twitter much better than Twitter itself does.
Tweetbot has masterfully integrated finger swipes to make it much easier get information on a specific person's profile, see all replies to a particular tweet and more.
It remains to be seen how tough Twitter will be on third-party apps. The rules have a little wiggle room built into them - Twitter, for instance, could grant permission for an app to have more than 200,000 users.
The reason things could get a little more user-unfriendly is money.
Twitter is under a lot of pressure to bring in more revenue and prove that it can be financially viable for the long term. One of the ways the company is doing this is by selling "promoted" tweets that show up in your feed even if you're not a subscriber - unless you use a third-party app. I've yet to see a promoted tweet show up in Tweetbot. This, at least according to Twitter, is a problem.
It's always frustrating to see a great idea get weighed down by financial realities and lose the emphasis on purely pleasing the customer, though this is hardly the first time. Or the last. Facebook is already testing out ads in its feeds, so the cycle continues.
Source: http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=52&articleid=20120826_52_E5_Therec702223
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