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Was it a good decision for Twitter to change their TOS to disallow lots of 3rd party apps? Would a better strategy have been to let people experiment and charge 30% a la Apple?
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I also wonder about the firehouse. I understand that they charge a hefty rate for access to the fire hose data (capped at 50%) 3rd party clients might have started getting something that looked a lot like the firehose data for free?
Does anyone else find it interesting that Dick gets all the press when it comes to revenue despite them hiring Adam Bain to be responsible for it?
1. to build cool shit
2. to know the rules of the game
3. to build cool shit
Seems to me if they were going to do instream advertising then who controls the access point isn't that important but if the advertising is going to be around the stream rather than in it well then...
IMO the Twitter user base is split in to two distinct user groups:
1) Power Users. This group uses it as a business tool of some sort (customer acquisition/competitive intelligence/etc) and/or as an interaction platform. These users overwhelmingly use 3rd party clients because those clients are the only way you can process Twitter efficiently. Twitter.com for this group is a complete non-starter.
2) Lean-Back Users: This group tends to follow high-profile celebrities, personal interests, and/or industry leaders. They consume and surf Twitter very similarly to what they do with Television or the Web in general. This is the group for which the development of a "channel" solution would be very smart: http://uniquevis...ter-twit
IMO the smartest thing Twitter could do is to recognize these two basic user groups and figure out how to best monetize each. Ironically, what they'll realize is that the "consistent experience" they claim to be protecting is actually the thing that will handcuff product development and ultimately constrain it's ability to monetize.
At this point they realized they need to make some changes. They need to direct the growth a little bit more in order to attract more users both in the two categories and in categories that haven't been created yet.
Was this a rapid change and maybe a bit heavy-handed? Yes. The biggest reason being @Rocky Agrawal 's last point. But twitter will not forever be divided into those two groups and it will have to be able to guide the growth of it's product more. When the only thing you have to offer is a fire hose, you can't do that.
And to stay on topic: my take is you are spot on, they should've let "a 1000 flowers bloom", the only way to nurture innovation. Only a shadow of what's possible ever hatches in a corporate environment (facebook, again + MS and even Google -- it tries to stimulate idea creation for sure, but execution kills most).