What's happening with Tweetie for Mac

[Ryan Sarver]

One more from me. People have been asking for specific details around
Tweetie for Mac and I wanted to make sure we clearly message our plans
as we know it. To be clear, Tweetie for the iPhone and it's developer,
Loren Brichter, were the focus of our acquisition, but as part of the
deal we also got Tweetie for Mac.

Loren had been hard at work on a new version of Tweetie for Mac that
he was going to release soon. Our plan is to still release the new
version and it will continue to be called Tweetie (not renamed to
Twitter). We will also discontinue the paid version.

Hope that's clear. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best, Ryan

[TvvitterBug by Applgasm-Apps]

So if I got this right, Twitter is going to distribute both Tweetie for iPhone and Tweetie for Mac for "free", thus competing with its developer community in the Twitter desktop and mobile client space with "free" products?  And all those "other" desktop and mobile apps that helped put Twitter on the map, well they're just SOL?  And somehow Twitter believes this move is going to encourage developers to continue to develop for a platform that will eventually compete against all but one of them with predatory "free" pricing?  Sounds like you must be looking for developers from the "Las Vegas School of Business", not business partners within a symbiotic ecosystem.

[Isaiah Carew]

Crystal clear.

1.  You're decimating the client market on every platform but Windows.

2.  You're killing any potential for innovation or investment.

3.  You have no clear (public) plan for any innovation yourself.

What marketing genius...

Oh never mind.  It's not worth the breath.

Good luck with that.

Anyone want a chirp ticket?

isaiah

http://twitter.com/isaiah

[Abraham Williams]

There are a number of people that would like Twitter to consider open sourcing Tweetie for Mac: http://act.ly/1w1

There is much to be gained such as community contributed patches, a more competitive environment on the Mac, (just to name a few) and little to lose.

I hope Twitter will consider this option in earnest.

Abraham

--
Abraham Williams | Developer for hire | http://abrah.am
PoseurTech Labs | Projects | http://labs.poseurtech.com
This email is: [ ] shareable [x] ask first [ ] private.

[Jesse Stay]

I think it's great that Twitter is finally being more transparent about all this.  I could argue they need to be more transparent (where do they plan to go in the analytics and enterprise spaces?), but it's about time.  They've finally drawn the line in the sand - now we need to adapt.  Yes, it's frustrating, but then again, 90% of businesses fail - it's the risk all of us took.  We either compete, or quit, and move on.  I don't get all the complaints - this is nothing new.  I've had half my features replaced by Twitter over the last few years (quite literally - just read my blog - I'm the chief complainer).  By now I realize that's either part of life (note: it's the same on Facebook, too - there's no escaping it), or I change my focus to where Twitter is not my core and I instead use Twitter to strengthen my new core.  That's where Twitter (and Fred Thompson) have made it clear they want us to go.  Finally, some clarity.  I'm appreciative of it, regardless of how frustrating it can be.  Time for all of us to take this constructively and adapt.

Just my $.02 FWIW...

Jesse

[Scott Wilcox]

I second Abraham's view on this.

[Isaiah Carew]

sorry for being cranky, but i just spent a year building a tweetie competitor.

you can't fault a guy for saying ouch while your knife is still sticking out of his back, right?

isaiah

http://twitter.com/isaiah

[Andrew Badera]

Fred Thompson? What's Law & Order got to do with anything?

(Wilson?)

--ab

[Michael Macasek]

Ryan,

Great news thanks for the update!

Jesse,

Well said.

[Eric Woodward]

Ryan,

Thanks for clarifying, finally, at least. Rebranded Twitter or not,
Tweetie as owned and developed by Twitter basically reinforces and
confirms everything that we posted on the Nambu blog this morning:
Twitter will take anything significant built around Twitter for
itself, 100%.

Twitter is now officially developing native applications on three
platforms: iPhone OS, OSX and Blackberry, all free. Simply brutal. But
I am not nearly affected as the iPhone developers. They should be
rightfully livid that Twitter moved to wipe them out and take all
advertising revenue (iAd and other stuff) on the iPhone and iPad for
themselves rather than share it, as almost all other platforms do.
Pretty sad. Make no mistake, "Twitter for iPhone" will take all
significant market share, and there is nothing any of the developers
there that have done great work can do about it. If you do not see
this, you do not understand the basics of business.

Making Tweetie free is pretty brutal as well, but only because Twitter
is doing it. Everyone else should be put on notice that you will be
next, as we have been.

Mr. Wilson and Twitter, with these moves, and have basically told
everyone of competence that they must accept their development efforts
as only ending up as a nice lifestyle business. Anything more, and
Twitter will move to take it from you, simple as that.

--ejw

Eric Woodward
Email: e...@nambuc.om

[Dmitri Snytkine]

While this is bad news to handful of iPhone based app developers, it's
a great news for millions of iphone users who will be able to get
Twitter app for free.

[Jesse Stay]

Not at all - I've spent 3 years building features constantly replaced by Twitter (or killed due to Twitter changing the TOS).  I've been there, and had plenty of my share of crankiness - I guess I'm used to it now, and I realize that's just a part of writing apps for the ecosystem (or any 3rd party ecosystem for that matter).  The more Twitter can be transparent about things like this, the happier I am.  I'm glad they're starting to open up on where they stand.  I hope this continues.

Jesse

[Jesse Stay]

Eric, I disagree.  This just means they've put us on notice that if our apps completely revolve around Twitter we risk going into competition with them.  I don't think there's anything wrong with that, although it is frustrating, I agree (this is nothing new - they've been doing this for the last 3 years).  The way to succeed on the Twitter platform is to build apps that don't rely on Twitter, but instead use Twitter as a complement to their own ecosystem.  Your app should be its own platform, relying on other platforms to complement it, not the other way around.  I think that's what Twitter is trying to iterate here, and we see that with the coming advent of @anywhere.  I love that they're finally being clear on this, as frustrating as it is for those it affects directly (although the writing's been on the wall for awhile now - I certainly have complained many times about this).

Jesse

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[Jesse Stay]

What? They're not the same person?   All this time... ;-)  Yes, I meant Wilson.

[Orian Marx (@orian)]

I've spent eight months on a new Twitter client myself, and I had
planned to start showing it at Chirp. Mine is in-browser so I suppose
it's not quite the same situation, but in reality I do think they are
all, for the most part, in competition with each other - no?

On Apr 12, 1:12 pm, Isaiah Carew <isa...@me.com> wrote:
> sorry for being cranky, but i just spent a year building a tweetie competitor.
>
> you can't fault a guy for saying ouch while your knife is still sticking out of his back, right?
>

> isaiahhttp://twitter.com/isaiah

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

On 04/12/2010 01:58 PM, Orian Marx (@orian) wrote:
> I've spent eight months on a new Twitter client myself, and I had
> planned to start showing it at Chirp. Mine is in-browser so I suppose
> it's not quite the same situation, but in reality I do think they are
> all, for the most part, in competition with each other - no?

Yes, there is a competition - two competitions, in fact:

1. Clients that interface only to Twitter, and
2. Clients that interface to Twitter and other services.

If we narrow the field to Twitter-only clients, the stats are very
clear: http://twitter.com has the lion's share of the tweet count, with
uberTwitter a distant second and TweetDeck third. See
http://tdash.org/stats/clients for the numbers.

Tweetie is number 11 on the list - *1.39%* of all the tweets posted come
from Tweetie!

In short, Twitter clients are "jockeying for position" in a crowded
field with 39.31% of the usage already subtracted out by Twitter's main
web page. See "Which Twitter Clients Do People Actually Use?"
http://meb.tw/9iRfxU for some analysis.

--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
http://borasky-research.net/m-edward-ed-borasky/ @znmeb

"I've always regarded nature as the clothing of God." ~Alan Hovhaness

[Orian Marx (@orian)]

I seem to remember some debate over how uberTwitter comes out with
such a large share in that analysis, but either way everything I have
seen has pointed to 40% of tweets posted coming from Twitter.com. In
my mind it would be smart for people to think about how to get market
share from that piece of the pie.

I'm not sure I see a significant distinction between Twitter-only
clients and clients that aggregate other services in terms of whether
or not they are in competition with each other.

On Apr 12, 6:37 pm, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <zn...@comcast.net>
wrote:

> On 04/12/2010 01:58 PM, Orian Marx (@orian) wrote:
>
> > I've spent eight months on a new Twitter client myself, and I had
> > planned to start showing it at Chirp. Mine is in-browser so I suppose
> > it's not quite the same situation, but in reality I do think they are
> > all, for the most part, in competition with each other - no?
>
> Yes, there is a competition - two competitions, in fact:
>
> 1. Clients that interface only to Twitter, and
> 2. Clients that interface to Twitter and other services.
>
> If we narrow the field to Twitter-only clients, the stats are very

> clear:http://twitter.comhas the lion's share of the tweet count, with
> uberTwitter a distant second and TweetDeck third. Seehttp://tdash.org/stats/clientsfor the numbers.

>
> Tweetie is number 11 on the list - *1.39%* of all the tweets posted come
> from Tweetie!
>
> In short, Twitter clients are "jockeying for position" in a crowded
> field with 39.31% of the usage already subtracted out by Twitter's main

> web page. See "Which Twitter Clients Do People Actually Use?"http://meb.tw/9iRfxUfor some analysis.

[Chad Etzel]

On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 4:44 PM, Orian Marx (@orian)
<or...@orianmarx.com> wrote:
> I seem to remember some debate over how uberTwitter comes out with

> such a large share in that analysis, ...

I've always been amazed by this, actually... check out:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=tweetphoto+source:ubertwitter&result_type=recent

The rate at which people are just posting photos with UberTwitter is
astounding, nevermind plain tweets.

-Chad

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

On 04/12/2010 04:44 PM, Orian Marx (@orian) wrote:
> I seem to remember some debate over how uberTwitter comes out with
> such a large share in that analysis, but either way everything I have
> seen has pointed to 40% of tweets posted coming from Twitter.com. In
> my mind it would be smart for people to think about how to get market
> share from that piece of the pie.
>
> I'm not sure I see a significant distinction between Twitter-only
> clients and clients that aggregate other services in terms of whether
> or not they are in competition with each other.

The distinction isn't really Twitter-only vs. Twitter-plus. I probably
shouldn't have "segmented the market" that way. If you subtract out
desktop Twitter.com via a browser, the market segments are

* "social media CRM tools", into which class I put HootSuite, CoTweet,
and Salesforce.com and SugarCRM with social media access plugins.
They're distinguished by accessing multiple services, "call tracking",
integration with email and analytics, scheduling of tweets, "campaign
management", etc.

* mobile Twitter clients, where uberTwitter and Twitter for iPhone
reside, and I think mobile.twitter.com. People just talking to Twitter
on a mobile device.

After I get back from Chirp, I'll probably look over Fred Wilson's
categories of Twitter applications again, because I'm not sure exactly
how he's segmented the market, and I think I'll have a different take
once I understand his.

In any event, the social CRM tool market segment is one that so far has
been fairly well served IMHO by third parties, and mostly because
they've recognized that they need to work with all the platforms -
render unto Twitter that which is Twitter's, render unto Facebook and
LinkedIn, etc.

--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

borasky-research.net/m-edward-ed-borasky

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

[zn...@comcast.net]

> --
> To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.

Yeah, @sheamus thought uberTwitter wasn't that popular either. But I know a fair number of "power tweeters" that have had a Blackberry for a long time, so maybe there just aren't any other good BB clients. So - I missed the whole Blackberry story in all the iPhone brouhaha - is the new "Twitter Blackberry" client something Twitter bought, or are they building it?

[TjL]

On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 11:54 AM, Isaiah Carew <isa...@me.com> wrote:
>
> 1.  You're decimating the client market on every platform but Windows.

The iPhone and Mac versions of Tweetie have been a) dominant and b)
free (ad-supported).

If your app was set to compete with Tweetie 2 on the Mac and iPhone
before this, it still is.

If it wasn't, it still isn't.

Also, you've had a LOT of time to compete against Tweetie on the Mac.
If you missed the window, well, sorry.

> 2. You're killing any potential for innovation or investment.

Oh, baloney. Ask BareBones how BBEdit has done competing against the
free version of TextEdit.

In 2010, you are going to compete with "free". That sucks, but it's
the reality of the situation. You'd better have a plan in place for
it.

I'm still giving EchoFon for Mac and iPhone a serious look. Why?
Because it has features Tweetie doesn't.

I'd start with looking at what Tweetie doesn't offer. What does it
make too difficult?

"really wish i knew why so many twitter clients are against keyboard
navigation and proper highlighting"

http://twitter.com/bynkii/status/12026843737 (21 hours ago… Via Tweetie)

Tweetie breaks several Mac UI principles ("click to select a word"
comes to mind).

A good UI for filtering tweets based on strings ("SXSW" comes to
mind). Sync between Mac and iPhone.

Push notifications for mentions.

Push notifications for mentions only for people who follow you.

Push notifications for mentions only for people you follow.

Push notifications of new posts by only a select group of people (like
SMS notifications, but without SMS).

I'm still waiting for someone to build a big enough database to get
relationship data in-app ("x person is also followed by these people
you follow", as one example).

There are a half-dozen ideas off the top of my head.

> 3. You have no clear (public) plan for any innovation yourself.

Have you published your plan for innovation somewhere? I'm under the
impression that *most* companies keep their future plans a fairly well
guarded secret. (Well, except for Microsoft, who tell you what they
are going to do and then do 1/100th of it 4 years later.)

TjL

[Isaiah Carew]

hey look, i'm not looking for a flame war here. what twitter did just seemed a bit less than nice to me, that's all. this is the forum for developer feedback, if i'm not mistaken. i was feeding back.

you've got a lot of valid points, and maybe a few stretched analogies, too. if you'd like my thoughts on this i posted a nicer, more thought out article: http://yourhead.tumblr.com/post/516626319/le-roi-est-mort-vive-le-roi

i'd be happy to continue to debate via email or at chirp (yes, i'm going, i'm a glutton for punishment, shoot me).

see you guys tomorrow,

isaiah
http://twitter.com/isaiah

[Chad Etzel]

On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 6:08 PM, TjL <luo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Push notifications for mentions.
>
> Push notifications for mentions only for people who follow you.
>
> Push notifications for mentions only for people you follow.
>
> Push notifications of new posts by only a select group of people (like
> SMS notifications, but without SMS).

See http://push.ly/ for points 1 and 4. The cool thing is that anyone
can use the http://notifo.com/ API to accomplish the notification
piece and build similar services.

-Chad

[Tammy Fennell]

Have to admit it is kinda scary to develop for twitter, but maybe when
more plans are released we'll understand twitter's plan a bit better.
I don't begrudge Tweetie for being acquired, good for them, i'm sure
it was a nice deal for them. It's a very narrow tightrope twitter
walks though with developers.... will be interested to see how it all
unfolds.

On Apr 12, 4:18 pm, TvvitterBug by Applgasm-Apps

<tvvitter...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So if I got this right, Twitter is going to distribute both Tweetie for
> iPhone and Tweetie for Mac for "free", thus competing with its developer
> community in the Twitter desktop and mobile client space with "free"
> products?  And all those "other" desktop and mobile apps that helped put
> Twitter on the map, well they're just SOL?  And somehow Twitter believes
> this move is going to encourage developers to continue to develop for a
> platform that will eventually compete against all but one of them with
> predatory "free" pricing?  Sounds like you must be looking for developers
> from the "Las Vegas School of Business", not business partners within a

[Orian Marx (@orian)]

This is certainly a risk we all face. However in my mind there are
ways Twitter can do a better job in indicating where we should and
should not concentrate effort. For example, there are things that
Twitter has had in its V2 roadmap for years now, and some of us have
decided to try and implement them on our own. If Twitter was willing
to set even very rough priorities for things and very rough estimates
("soon" is not a rough estimate) that could go a long way in
preventing us from wasting our time. Obviously they aren't going to
tell us in advance of major new functionality, but I'm referring to
functionality they have already indicated they would like to tackle at
some future point