Twitter’s announcement disuading developers from creating Twitter Clients prompted me to read the updated terms and conditions – something I should do more often. I also found an old copy from March 1st via Google cache, so I could compare them.
There is indeed a new subsection: 1.5, but it does not explicitly forbid the development of client software. It does however indicate that they will be watching you closely if you choose to do so.
1.5.a: “Your Client must use the Twitter API as the sole source for features that are substantially similar to functionality offered by Twitter”
Somewhat ambiguous, but the important point is they can add clauses to this section whenever they like. Get it?
Ryan’s announcement is more telling, of course –
“Twitter will provide the primary mainstream consumer client experience on phones, computers, and other devices”
“If you are an existing developer of client apps, you can continue to serve
your user base, but we will be holding you to high standards […]”
You’ d be crazy to enter the client market now anyway. I feel for the companies that already have, but Bill Gross seems less concerned. I wonder what he has to say about this – I doubt very much this development is anything like a surprise.
The fact is that this isn’t new. It’s been obvious for some time that Twitter are reclaiming their brand, and that’s only going to continue. Why would you expect this not to be the case?
The only thing that’s new here is Twitter’s verbalising of what we already knew. At least that’s some welcome transparency. The announcement isn’t a press release, mind you. This is a developer writing on a developers’ mailing list. It’s pretty candid, but it’s actually good advice. If you didn’t already know the state of the nation – now you do. I’m taking a copy in case it disappears.
People will complain that the developer community helped Twitter succeed, and now these same people are being told to get lost. The goal posts are Twitter’s to move. Today it’s client software – what’s next?
This is all fair comment, but we need to stop being so surprised by such things. They are a corporation.