consistency and ecosystem opportunities

[Ryan Sarver]

Hey all, I’d like to give you an update about the state of the Twitter Platform and hopefully provide some much requested guidance.

Since this time last year, Twitter use has skyrocketed.  We’ve grown from 48 million to 140 million tweets a day and we’re registering new accounts at an all-time record.  This massive base of users, publishers, and businesses is a giant playground for developers to build their own businesses on, and this means the opportunity has grown for everyone.

With more people joining Twitter and accessing the service in multiple ways, a consistent user experience is more crucial than ever.  As we talked about last April, this was our motivation for buying Tweetie and developing our own official iPhone app.  It is the reason why we have developed official apps for the Mac, iPad, Android and Windows Phone, and worked with RIM on their Twitter for Blackberry app. As a result, the top five ways that people access Twitter are official Twitter apps.

Still, our user research shows that consumers continue to be confused by the different ways that a fractured landscape of third-party Twitter clients display tweets and let users interact with core Twitter functions.  For example, people get confused by websites or clients that display tweets in a way that doesn’t follow our design guidelines, or when services put their own verbs on tweets instead of the ones used on Twitter.  Similarly, a number of third-party consumer clients use their own versions of suggested users, trends, and other data streams, confusing users in our network even more.  Users should be able to view, retweet, and reply to @nytimes’ tweets the same way; see the same profile information about @whitehouse; and be able to join in the discussion around the same trending topics as everyone else across Twitter.

A Consistent User Experience

Twitter is a network, and its network effects are driven by users seeing and contributing to the network’s conversations.  We need to ensure users can interact with Twitter the same way everywhere.  Specifically:

 - The mainstream consumer client experience.  Twitter will provide the primary mainstream consumer client experience on phones, computers, and other devices by which millions of people access Twitter content (tweets, trends, profiles, etc.), and send tweets.  If there are too many ways to use Twitter that are inconsistent with one another, we risk diffusing the user experience.  In addition, a number of client applications have repeatedly violated Twitter’s Terms of Service, including our user privacy policy.  This demonstrates the risks associated with outsourcing the Twitter user experience to third parties.  Twitter has to revoke literally hundreds of API tokens / apps a week as part of our trust and safety efforts, in order to protect the user experience on our platform.

 - Display of tweets in 3rd-party services. We need to ensure that tweets, and tweet actions, are rendered in a consistent way so that people have the same experience with tweets no matter where they are.   For example, some developers display “comment”, “like”, or other terms with tweets instead of  “follow, favorite, retweet, reply” - thus changing the core functions of a tweet.

With this in mind, we’ve updated our Terms of Service: http://dev.twitter.com/pages/api_terms.

The Opportunity for Developers

Developers have told us that they’d like more guidance from us about the best opportunities to build on Twitter.  More specifically, developers ask us if they should build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.  The answer is no.

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 to ensure you do not violate users’ privacy, that you provide consistency in the user experience, and that you rigorously adhere to all areas of our Terms of Service.  We have spoken with the major client applications in the Twitter ecosystem about these needs on an ongoing basis, and will continue to ensure a high bar is maintained.  

As we point out above, we need to move to a less fragmented world, where every user can experience Twitter in a consistent way.  This is already happening organically - the number and market share of consumer client apps that are not owned or operated by Twitter has been shrinking.  According to our data, 90% of active Twitter users use official Twitter apps on a monthly basis.

In contrast, the number of successful applications and companies in the Twitter ecosystem that focus on areas outside of the mainstream consumer client experience has grown quickly, and this is a trend we want to continue to support and help grow.  Twitter will always be a platform on which a smart developer with a great idea and some cool technology can build a great company of his or her own.  And, with record user growth, there has never been a better time to build into Twitter.  

Some key areas where ecosystem developers are thriving:

 - Publisher tools.  Companies such as SocialFlow help publishers optimize how they use Twitter, leading to increased user engagement and the production of the right tweet at the right time. 

 - Curation.  Mass Relevance and Sulia provide services for large media brands to select, display, and stream the most interesting and relevant tweets for a breaking news story, topic or event.  

 - Realtime data signals.  Hundreds of companies use real-time Twitter data as an input into ranking, ad targeting, or other aspects of enhancing their own core products.  Klout is an example of a company which has taken this to the next level by using Twitter data to generate reputation scores for individuals.  Similarly, Gnip syndicates Twitter data for licensing by third parties who want to use our real-time corpus for numerous applications (everything from hedge funds to ranking scores).  

 - Social CRM, entreprise clients, and brand insights.  Companies such as HootSuite, CoTweet, Radian6, Seesmic, and Crimson Hexagon help brands, enterprises, and media companies tap into the zeitgeist about their brands on Twitter, and manage relationships with their consumers using Twitter as a medium for interaction.

 - Value-added content and vertical experiences.  Emerging services like Formspring, Foursquare, Instagram, and Quora have built into Twitter by allowing users to share unique and valuable content to their followers, while, in exchange, the services get broader reach, user acquisition, and traffic.  

A lot of Twitter’s success is attributable to a diverse ecosystem of more than 750,000 registered apps.  We will continue to support this innovation.  We are excited to be working with our developer community to create a consistent and innovative experience for the many millions of users who have come to depend on Twitter every day.

As always, we welcome your feedback and questions.

Best, Ryan

@rsarver

[Eric Mill]

"More specifically, developers ask us if they should build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.  The answer is no."

"We need to ensure users can interact with Twitter the same way everywhere."

I'm not sure you can say these things and simultaneously try to say you have a welcoming developer environment. All third party Twitter developers, no matter what they make, are now walking on eggshells, constantly at risk of offending Twitter's ideas of how users should interact with Twitter.

You may feel you "need" this consistency, but you don't. You want it, and are willing to make tradeoffs to get it. I just hope you realize how big those tradeoffs are, and how chilling it is for Twitter to decide that only certain kinds of innovation on the Twitter API are welcome.

-- Eric

[TJ Luoma]

Translation: "Thanks for building apps that made people want to use
Twitter. Thanks for putting up with us through the months and months
of instability. We'll take over from here. If you want to try to build
something around the fringes of Twitter, that's fine, but really, we
don't need you anymore. Goodbye."

Think I'm wrong? Here are the first 3 responses from people I follow on Twitter.

"Just FYI, Twitter doesn't want you to make client apps anymore.
http://j.mp/eTicd4"

"Unfortunately the handwriting in regards to 3rd party twitter client
seems to be plastered on the wall - http://t.co/SWAv1JE"

"People may infer that Apple hates 3rd party devs, but Twitter has the
giant brass balls to just come out and state it."

I guess in hindsight, forcing the move to oAuth was just the first of
many ways to eliminate developers.

Oh, and this?

> According to our data, 90% of active Twitter users use official Twitter apps on a monthly basis.

Gee, I wonder if that's because you add features to your own apps that
you don't give others access to. How many of them are using the
official Twitter apps as their primary way of reading Twitter?

That's my favorite statistic since Twitter released their own iOS app
with the ability to create new accounts (something you refuse to let
other developers do) and then talk about the wild success of mobile
account creation vs people who created an account via mobile before
(which, I guess, meant sending a post via SMS since that was the only
way to do it).

Welcome to the beginning of the end. Maybe not for Twitter, Inc. but
for developers.

Nice job releasing this on a Friday afternoon too… oh, and the same
day as the iPad launch? Huh. Interesting.

TjL

[Mike Champion]

Thanks for the clarification Ryan. Two questions:

1) Do you have a clear definition of what counts as a Twitter client?
Is it any app/service that posts updates to Twitter, including apps
like twitterfeed and Instapaper? Or is it only those apps that are
"primarily" clients? I'm certainly familiar with the challenge of
classifying apps ;) but wanted to know who will be covered by the ToS
Section 1.5 and how you think about "clients" given Twitter's updated
stance.

2) In section 1.5.A of the ToS it says:

"Your Client must use the Twitter API as the sole source for features
that are substantially similar to functionality offered by Twitter.
Some examples include trending topics, who to follow, and suggested
user lists."

Is the "Who to follow" functionality available via API from Twitter
for clients that want to offer this? I wasn't aware that it been
released as API but may have missed it on dev.twitter.com.

Thanks,

-mike

[Steve Streza]

Twitter continues to make hostile and aggressive moves to alienate the third-party developers who helped make it the platform it is now. Today it's third party Twitter clients. Tomorrow it'll be URL shorteners and image/video hosts. Next it'll be analytics and ads and who knows what else.

Maybe you guys should spend some time improving the core of the service (uptime, reliability, bug fixes, etc.) rather than ingressing on the work of the thousands of developers who made Twitter an exciting place to be.

Steve

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

On Fri, 11 Mar 2011 13:18:24 -0700, Ryan Sarver <rsa...@twitter.com>
wrote:
> THE OPPORTUNITY FOR DEVELOPERS

> Some key areas where ecosystem developers are thriving:

>  - PUBLISHER TOOLS.  Companies such as SocialFlow [2] help

> publishers optimize how they use Twitter, leading to increased user
> engagement and the production of the right tweet at the right time. 

>  - CURATION.  Mass Relevance [3] and Sulia [4] provide services for

> large media brands to select, display, and stream the most
> interesting
> and relevant tweets for a breaking news story, topic or event.  

>  - REALTIME DATA SIGNALS.  Hundreds of companies use real-time

> Twitter data as an input into ranking, ad targeting, or other aspects

> of enhancing their own core products.  Klout [5] is an example of a

> company which has taken this to the next level by using Twitter data

> to generate reputation scores for individuals.  Similarly, Gnip [6]

> syndicates Twitter data for licensing by third parties who want to
> use
> our real-time corpus for numerous applications (everything from hedge
> funds to ranking scores).  

>  - SOCIAL CRM, ENTREPRISE CLIENTS, AND BRAND INSIGHTS.  Companies
> such as HootSuite [7], CoTweet [8], Radian6 [9], Seesmic [10], and
> Crimson Hexagon [11] help brands, enterprises, and media companies

> tap
> into the zeitgeist about their brands on Twitter, and manage
> relationships with their consumers using Twitter as a medium for
> interaction.

>  - VALUE-ADDED CONTENT AND VERTICAL EXPERIENCES.  Emerging services
> like Formspring [12], Foursquare [13], Instagram [14], and Quora [15]

> have built into Twitter by allowing users to share unique and
> valuable
> content to their followers, while, in exchange, the services get
> broader reach, user acquisition, and traffic.  

There's a common thread in most of the businesses you've listed as
"thriving" above. Nearly all of them interface with *multiple* networks
- Twitter, yes, but also Facebook, LinkedIn, and even MySpace.
HootSuite, for example, connects to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,
MySpace, Ping.fm, WordPress, Foursquare and mixi. There's also Google
Buzz / Latitude, Tumblr, Posterous, Gowalla, Yelp, and I'm sure many
others. In short, I'd say there seem to be few businesses "thriving"
that have focused only on Twitter.

Last time I looked at the Alexa site rankings world-wide, Twitter was
number nine. It's a long climb to the top IMHO - Twitter needs to pass
Wikipedia and Baidu just to get to the point where Google, Yahoo!,
Microsoft and Facebook are in sight. Twitter is still growing, for sure,
but there are clearly some challenges for developers who only develop
for Twitter.
--
http://twitter.com/znmeb http://borasky-research.net

"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." -- Paul
Erdős

[aartiles]

Is there any way to validate an idea before waste time developing it?

[howardk]

I'll ditto Mike Champion that it would be good to have a clear
definition of "client". I posted elsewhere ("Do new ToS conditions
apply to my app?" -- in retrospect it would have been better here)
that I'm just about to release a minimal "client" on the iPad, and
you've just scared the bejesus out of me because I don't know if I'm
suddenly verboten or not. Five months of work shot to hell?
Howard

[David W]

It seems a little confusing that you're basically saying "don't build
any more Twitter clients" and then call out the likes of Hoot Suite
and Seesmic as being examples of what people should be doing. At
heart they're just Twitter clients (that we shouldn't build any
more?) They also appear to be conflict with section 5e of the Ts &
Cs: "You may not use Twitter Content or other data collected from end
users of your Client to create or maintain a separate status update or
social network database or service."

I guess what confuses me most, is the motivation behind this
announcement? I mean sure, no-one wants apps out there that take
advantage of end users and give them a rough ride, but as you said
yourself 90% of users aren't getting that experience and as someone
else said; good apps will always bubble to the top.

I think it's incredibly disappointing to hear Twitter tell dev's not
to create clients any more. No developer sets out to create a bad
Twitter client. They set out to improve the Twitter experience,
because they believe they can and generally because they love
Twitter. Arguably Twitter wouldn't be where it is today if it weren't
for those that did exactly that.

Unless we've all misunderstood what's been said here, then I'd
question investing any time or money into the focusing on what are,
today, areas "outside the mainstream consumer client experience".
Sure go ahead and innovate in the areas Twitter tells you you're
allowed to... for now. What happens when Twitter sees the new
innovation you've just discovered is really popular? Do we get
another announcement telling dev's not to develop that stuff any more?

Like I say, I hope we've all misunderstood the message here (I really
do). I've no beef with the Ts & Cs. But please don't tell people to
stop developing clients that people work hard on and that users love.

> *A Consistent User Experience*

> Twitter is a network, and its network effects are driven by users seeing and
> contributing to the network’s conversations.  We need to ensure users can
> interact with Twitter the same way everywhere.  Specifically:

>  - *The mainstream consumer client experience*.  Twitter will provide the

> primary mainstream consumer client experience on phones, computers, and
> other devices by which millions of people access Twitter content (tweets,
> trends, profiles, etc.), and send tweets.  If there are too many ways to use
> Twitter that are inconsistent with one another, we risk diffusing the user
> experience.  In addition, a number of client applications have repeatedly
> violated Twitter’s Terms of Service, including our user privacy policy.
>  This demonstrates the risks associated with outsourcing the Twitter user
> experience to third parties.  Twitter has to revoke literally hundreds of
> API tokens / apps a week as part of our trust and safety efforts, in order
> to protect the user experience on our platform.

>  - *Display of tweets in 3rd-party services*. We need to ensure that tweets,

> and tweet actions, are rendered in a consistent way so that people have the
> same experience with tweets no matter where they are.   For example, some
> developers display “comment”, “like”, or other terms with tweets instead of
>  “follow, favorite, retweet, reply” - thus changing the core functions of a
> tweet.
>
> With this in mind, we’ve updated our Terms of Service:http://dev.twitter.com/pages/api_terms.
>

> *The Opportunity for Developers*

>  - *Publisher tools*.  Companies such as
> SocialFlow<http://www.socialflow.com/>help publishers optimize how

> they use Twitter, leading to increased user
> engagement and the production of the right tweet at the right time.

>  - *Curation*.  Mass Relevance <http://www.massrelevance.com/> and
> Sulia<http://www.sulia.com/>provide services for large media brands to

> select, display, and stream the
> most interesting and relevant tweets for a breaking news story, topic or
> event.

>  - *Realtime data signals*.  Hundreds of companies use real-time Twitter

> data as an input into ranking, ad targeting, or other aspects of enhancing

> their own core products.  Klout <http://klout.com/> is an example of a

> company which has taken this to the next level by using Twitter data to
> generate reputation scores for individuals.  Similarly,

> Gnip<http://gnip.com/>syndicates Twitter data for licensing by third

> parties who want to use our
> real-time corpus for numerous applications (everything from hedge funds to
> ranking scores).

>  - *Social CRM, entreprise clients, and brand insights*.  Companies such as
> HootSuite <http://hootsuite.com/>, CoTweet <http://cotweet.com/>,
> Radian6<http://www.radian6.com/>,
> Seesmic <http://seesmic.com/>, and Crimson
> Hexagon<http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/>help brands, enterprises, and

> media companies tap into the zeitgeist about
> their brands on Twitter, and manage relationships with their consumers using
> Twitter as a medium for interaction.

>  - *Value-added content and vertical experiences*.  Emerging services like
> Formspring <http://www.formspring.me/>, Foursquare <http://foursquare.com/>,
> Instagram <http://instagr.am/>, and Quora <http://www.quora.com/> have built

> into Twitter by allowing users to share unique and valuable content to their
> followers, while, in exchange, the services get broader reach, user
> acquisition, and traffic.
>
> A lot of Twitter’s success is attributable to a diverse ecosystem of more
> than 750,000 registered apps.  We will continue to support this innovation.
>  We are excited to be working with our developer community to create a
> consistent and innovative experience for the many millions of users who have
> come to depend on Twitter every day.
>
> As always, we welcome your feedback and questions.
>
> Best, Ryan

> @rsarver <http://twitter.com/rsarver>

[Umashankar Das]

Dear Ryan,
   A very direct question. Is it being said that I cannot associate a brand new field like 'Discuss' with a tweet in my website?
Regards
Umashankar Das

--
Twitter developer documentation and resources: http://dev.twitter.com/doc
API updates via Twitter: http://twitter.com/twitterapi
Issues/Enhancements Tracker: http://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/list
Change your membership to this group: http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk

[Brainewave Consulting]

Would it be possible to get a set of user interface guidelines, like those that Apple provides to application developers, so that value add applications (such as TweePLayer.com) can conform consistently to the mainstream experience?

Mike Caprio

Principal and Lead Consultant

Brainewave Consulting

402 Graham Avenue PMB 211

Brooklyn, NY  11211

p: +1-347-269-0558

@brainewave

[Dewald Pretorius]

The most telling change in the Terms of Service occurred in sentence
#2 or paragraph #1 under section Rules of the Road.

It used to read: "We want to empower our ecosystem partners to build
valuable BUSINESSES around the information flowing through Twitter."

It now (since March 11, 2011) reads: "We want to empower our ecosystem
partners to build valuable TOOLS around the information flowing
through Twitter."

[Dustin Lennon]

The best I can locate for the "Who to follow" functionality from the Twitter API is under the User Resources and touching on GET users/suggestions and GET users/suggestions/:slug now how to come close to what Twitter places on their Who to follow page is beyond me.

-Dustin 
This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message, which arise as a result of e-mail transmission.

[Duane Roelands]

Wow. "Thanks for getting so many people interested in Twitter. Now
get lost."

This is appalling.

[Adam Green]

Interesting that neither Ryan or anyone else from Twitter has replied once to any of the questions here, (way to go on showing your interest in the developer community, Ryan),  so I'll address this question to everyone else in the group. I don't read Ryan's message as demanding that apps are no longer allowed to send tweets on behalf of users. Is that supposed to be what he said? I think he is saying that apps should be more than *just* clients that let you read and post tweets. How to tell the difference, I have no idea, but I think in Ryan's mind there is a difference.

I'll ask it as clearly as I can. Is it still allowed for an app to accept a tweet from a user and post it into their account?

Is the /statuses/update api call still allowed in an app?

Let's not wait for Twitter to respond, since they clearly don't want to any longer. Let's try and figure this out ourselves. What does everyone think? Can apps still send tweets?

If yes, there is still a market for Twitter API developers. If not, the Twitter API is over. It is that simple.

Maybe Ryan or anyone from Twitter can also find the time to answer this.

--

Twitter developer documentation and resources: http://dev.twitter.com/doc
API updates via Twitter: http://twitter.com/twitterapi
Issues/Enhancements Tracker: http://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/list
Change your membership to this group: http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk

--
Adam Green
Twitter API Consultant and Trainer
http://140dev.com
@140dev

[Scott Wilcox]

Hello,

For a few days now I've read what people have said in reply to the update from Ryan. There are some crazy reactions and responses to what Ryan has said. In essence, the entire reaction is my opinion is completely overblown.

Not in any sense what-so-ever have Twitter said that you can no longer post updates on behalf of users. Its ludicrous to suggest so. What they have have said (and in my opinion - quite clearly) is that it is better to direct your time and effort into a product that is not just a simple client and does more than just provide viewing and posting of tweets. There are so many half-arsed clients out there that do little more than just show and post tweets. If by chance a user was to use these low grade applications as their first experience of Twitter, it would probably put them off using it in the long term.

I do fully believe that is why they have released their own branded clients for iOS, Macs and other devices. It provides a consistent experience for the end-users. 

The other thing that people seem to completely overlook is that Twitter are providing a freely accessible API at no charge to developers. It pains me to see so many developers standing the moral high ground. If you were paying for access to a service or product and it changes, you have a very valid reason to complain. To complain about a service provided free of charge for you to use at the end of the day frustrates me to no end. No single developer has a god given right to have access to the API, perhaps that should be remembered.

Scott.

[Shannon Whitley]

I was hoping that Ryan was just a few weeks early for his April Fools'
post.

"Don't build clients?" It sounds like a bad joke.

I wrote a letter to Ryan on my blog in response to this post:

http://www.voiceoftech.com/swhitley/index.php/2011/03/a-letter-to-ryan-sarver/

I know you guys can't be serious about this. Stage a mutiny if you
have to, but don't let this boneheaded decision stand.

[Scott Wilcox]

Perhaps Ryan was urging folks to spend their time and money on creating innovative products and not on a new client that would probably not get a large user base due to the official clients marketshare?

[Adam Green]

I agree, Scott. Ryan didn't say you can't post tweets, but everyone heard that. Every tech blog repeated it. Ryan should take a minute and explain that it isn't true. That much would help a lot. He led by saying don't build a client. That is where people stopped reading.

I don't think he meant to tell people that apps can't tweet, but he did give that impression. Now he should come back and say, "Sorry guys. I gave you the wrong impression. Here are specifically the things you can still do." Don't just point to companies with $10M in VC funds each and say "No problem, just be like them."

These are API developers. Say it in terms of the API. Exactly which API calls are still allowed. If he says statuses/update is still allowed, then that answers the question. There is no ambiguity.

As for Twitter being free. Yes. The API is, but denying the value that products like Tweetdeck gave Twitter *for free* is denying the reality of how Twitter got to where it is. It is called a partnership. They give us raw materials, we add value to them. We all benefit.

[Ryan Sarver]

Mike, a client is one that recreates the twitter experience, or in your words the "primary" experience. So I don't consider Instagram or Foursquare in that group. It's apps that render a user their timeline.

Apps that post into Twitter are great and explicitly called out at the bottom of the email.

Hope that helps clarify.

Best, Ryan

--

Ryan Sarver

@rsarver

[Ellsass]

"a new client that would probably not get a large user base due to the official clients marketshare"

That would sort itself out without the need for Twitter to change their TOS -- the app would simply remain unpopular and eventually whither away. The fact that Twitter is moving toward disallowing clients indicates they see clients as a threat, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with this.

[Ryan Sarver]

David, we are specifically talking about consumer clients. HootSuite and Seesmic are focused on a more enterprise or marketer audience as I called out at the bottom of the email.

Best, Ryan

--

Ryan Sarver

@rsarver

--

[Adam Green]

Thanks, Ryan. That helps a lot, and we should all repeat that to anyone who asks or says otherwise. So we have one answer. Tweeting in apps is still good.

Now, can you explain what you mean by  "It's apps that render a user their timeline." Please answer this. Is displaying a list of tweets forbidden or allowed?

If yes, is displaying a list of tweets *and* also providing functionality that lets the user post their own tweets allowed in the same app?

That is really all we need to know.

I won't ask you to explain why this isn't a "client". :)

[Ryan Sarver]

Adam, that is a totally incorrect characterization of the companies I listed in the email. A ton of those companies -- CoTweet, Klout, HootSuite, Socialflow -- sprung out of the ecosystem and were started on nights and weekends with no funding. Of course they have gotten some funding now as investors see them as great potential businesses.

Of course statuses/update is still allowed. As is statuses/user_timeline. We've added more policies and given guidance that we don't think there is a business in building consumer clients, but none of the APIs have changed.

--

Ryan Sarver

@rsarver

[Ellsass]

Scott, I don't think it's ludicrous to think that Twitter may
eventually pull the plug on, say, statuses/home_timeline, effectively
eliminating clients.

If Twitter's concern is ad revenue, all they'd need to do is add a
clause to their TOS specifying that all third-party clients must show
in-line ads or the quickbar or whatever else Twitter uses to generate
revenue. Then the issue is very clear for developers -- either
integrate Twitter's revenue-producing content into your client, or
don't make a client at all.

The fact that they seem to be going about this a different way, and
being a bit unclear as to what might happen to a client-only app,
leaves open the possibility that they simply want to close down the
market so the only access to one's timeline is via a first-party app.

[Scott Wilcox]

Highly doubtful that they would do that and they certainly haven't now.

Sent from my iPhone

[Adam Green]

They should insert ads into the stream, and say we can't remove them. That would be great. I have no problem with that, providing they treat us with respect. Give us an appeal process with warning if they don't like what we build. I have no problem with them wanting to make money from things I build. I want to make money from things they give me. I want everyone to make money.

Developers are not the problem. They are the solution. I can't help thinking there are people at high levels who sit around saying "How do we shake off these damned parasites?" If I'm wrong, maybe we can see a message from management that says "Here is a new initiative or dev program that will help you make money with the API. We love what you guys do so much we want to reward you. We want you to be part of a partnership."

That would be refreshing.

[Craig]

Ryan, you said in another post in this thread that statuses/user_timeline is still allowed. I'm curious how that jives with your second sentence here, "It's apps that render a user their timeline."

What will happen if an app falls into a gray area of being a client or consumer client? Will we simply have our Oauth tokens revoked, or will there be some sort of review process? Will their be a deadline for current client-only apps to find a way to fit the new TOS?

-Craig

[Raffi Krikorian]

in reading your blog post, i think you're misunderstanding what @rsarver wrote.  

the API is open -- i personally love seeing all the innovation around getting content into twitter (/1/status/update).  there is a cafe in france who's oven tweets whenever its done baking.  that uses the platform to get content in there.  there was a NYU project that enabled your plants to tweet when they needed water.  that uses the platform to get content into twitter.   then there are people who match tweets to context.  seeing twitter in action with a television show, or a newspaper article, or a conference, or a band -- that's how people really understand and get twitter.  they see it through the lens of what's happening in the world.

what @rsarver said, effectively, was building a business around simply rendering /1/statuses/home_timeline was probably-not-the-best-thing-to-do.  please go still innovate.  just don't bet money on simply making an API call to grabbing a user's home_timeline and rendering it.  that's thinking too small, and @rsarver is telling you that.

--
Raffi Krikorian
Twitter, Application Services
http://twitter.com/raffi

[Adam Green]

Raffi, do you really think a statement that insisted that all developers make sure that every single app presents tweets in exactly the same way, and that reminded those developers that Twitter shuts down hundreds of apps a day that fail to conform to the required presentation style, and that pointed to a TOS that went from 30 days warning to instant shutdown without any warning, would be read as Twitter urging everyone to "innovate"?

--
Twitter developer documentation and resources: http://dev.twitter.com/doc
API updates via Twitter: http://twitter.com/twitterapi
Issues/Enhancements Tracker: http://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/list
Change your membership to this group: http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk

[Shannon Whitley]

Thanks, Raffi, but obviously I'm not the only one reaching these
conclusions. If our interpretation is incorrect, then the policy
isn't clear.

Television shows, newspaper articles, and band pages are perfect
examples of places where a "Twitter client" might be useful. I could
build a full-featured Twitter client around a single news site and
that might be the perfect solution for that set of users. Under the
new guidelines, it sounds like I'd be shutdown.

On Mar 12, 6:39 pm, Raffi Krikorian <ra...@twitter.com> wrote:
> in reading your blog post, i think you're misunderstanding what

> @*rsarver*wrote.

>
> the API is open -- i personally love seeing all the innovation around
> getting content into twitter (/1/status/update).  there is a cafe in france
> who's oven tweets whenever its done baking.  that uses the platform to get
> content in there.  there was a NYU project that enabled your plants to tweet
> when they needed water.  that uses the platform to get content into twitter.
>   then there are people who match tweets to context.  seeing twitter in
> action with a television show, or a newspaper article, or a conference, or a
> band -- that's how people really understand and get twitter.  they see it
> through the lens of what's happening in the world.
>

> what @*rsarver* said, effectively, was building a business around
> *simply*rendering

> /1/statuses/home_timeline was probably-not-the-best-thing-to-do.  please go
> still innovate.  just don't bet money on simply making an API call to
> grabbing a user's home_timeline and rendering it.  that's thinking too

> small, and @*rsarver* is telling you that.

>
> On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 4:29 PM, Shannon Whitley

> <shannon.whit...@gmail.com>wrote:

>
> > I was hoping that Ryan was just a few weeks early for his April Fools'
> > post.
>
> > "Don't build clients?"  It sounds like a bad joke.
>
> > I wrote a letter to Ryan on my blog in response to this post:
>

> >http://www.voiceoftech.com/swhitley/index.php/2011/03/a-letter-to-rya...

[Raffi Krikorian]

is the "twitter client" what's the most useful thing there?  i would think the algorithms and system to match tweets to that content is the most fruitful place for entrepreneurship?

--
Twitter developer documentation and resources: http://dev.twitter.com/doc
API updates via Twitter: http://twitter.com/twitterapi
Issues/Enhancements Tracker: http://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/list
Change your membership to this group: http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk

[Adam Green]

Can we get a definition of "client?" This seems to be where we are talking across each other.

1.  Twitter HQ sees a client as an app that displays *only* a user's home time line and allows the user to tweet, retweet, follow, etc.

2.  Developers see a client as an app that displays tweets from any source, including the home timeline *and* those that are curated by editors and algorithms, and allows the user to tweet, retweet, follow, etc.

I think to Twitter HQ, these are two very different things. I believe that this is what Ryan was trying to say. I believe that Ryan was trying to say, don't build apps that *only* do 1. You will have more luck with 2. Developers heard don't build apps that do 2 or you will be instantly shut down.

If Ryan hadn't combined his message with things that inadvertently also were perceived as a threat of instant shutdown as a result of an innocent misunderstanding of the rules, his statement would have been taken as advice, rather than a threat. I believe he meant well. He failed. He should keep trying until everyone understands. That is his job. Or it should at least be someone's job. Collectively the developers are worth the effort.

Hey, why not hold a conference, put everyone together, and talk until this is clear? You can afford it. We all need it.

Your future IPO investors aren't stupid. Well, at least not all of them. It is not just your revenue numbers they will see. It is lots of either happy or unhappy developers. We will raise your valuation. Keep saying that to Dick and the Board. They need to understand that.

[Orian Marx (@orian)]

What I am hearing by reading through this thread and the various
responses by @rsarver and @raffi is that Twitter is "helping"
developers of Twitter clients realize that their efforts will not be
economically fruitful. This is because Twitter HQ can't see how
someone can build a Twitter client that is economically viable, due to
one of two possible things: either their roadmap dictates that third
party developers will not be able to be economically viable or they
simply cannot envision any innovation in Twitter clients that anyone
would pay for.

It seems the former is more of the case here, but I don't put the
later out of the realm of possibility, which is unfortunate. As for
the former, whether Ryan's email was informative, helpful, harassing,
or threatening is really of little point relative to the actual
changes to the Twitter Terms of Service. I have worked hard for a year
on a Twitter client that I think delivers substantial innovation, and
I came to SXSW to unveil it. It delivers innovation that I believe
people would pay for, and my feedback here has been confirming that.
The changes to the ToS I believe may jeopardize the viability of the
various solutions I have provided to long-standing problems with
Twitter. The end result is that Twitter users will be deprived of
solutions to long-standing problems, I will be deprived of the
opportunity to grow a viable business, and Twitter will be deprived of
innovation in their ecosystem. This seems to be a lose-lose situation
all around, but obviously Twitter sees a forthcoming benefit for them
that outweighs this.

In the end what I really don't understand is that services such as
HootSuite and CoTweet suddenly become reclassified as "enterprise"
applications because they've figured out ways to generate revenue and
are therefor no longer Twitter "clients"? This all seems to be based
around an assumption that "people" won't ever pay to use Twitter in
some capacity, only "businesses". This, to me, is ludicrous.

@orian

> contributing to the network’s conversations.  We need to ensure users can

> interact with Twitter the same way everywhere.  Specifically:
>  - *The mainstream consumer client experience*.  Twitter will provide the
> primary mainstream consumer client experience on phones, computers, and
> other devices by which millions of people access Twitter content (tweets,
> trends, profiles, etc.), and send tweets.  If there are too many ways to use
> Twitter that are inconsistent with one another, we risk diffusing the user
> experience.  In addition, a number of client applications have repeatedly
> violated Twitter’s Terms of Service, including our user privacy policy.
>  This demonstrates the risks associated with outsourcing the Twitter user
> experience to third parties.  Twitter has to revoke literally hundreds of
> API tokens / apps a week as part of our trust and safety efforts, in order
> to protect the user experience on our platform.
>  - *Display of tweets in 3rd-party services*. We need to ensure that tweets,
> and tweet actions, are rendered in a consistent way so that people have the
> same experience with tweets no matter where they are.   For example, some
> developers display “comment”, “like”, or other terms with tweets instead of
>  “follow, favorite, retweet, reply” - thus changing the core functions of a
> tweet.
>
> With this in mind, we’ve updated our Terms of Service:http://dev.twitter.com/pages/api_terms.
>
> *The Opportunity for Developers*
> Developers have told us that they’d like more guidance from us about the

> best opportunities to build on Twitter.  More specifically, developers ask

> us if they should build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream
> Twitter consumer client experience.  The answer is no.
>