Twitter Discards Client UI Community

Antique Geekmeister writes "Twitter has just decided to discard the community of developers who've created interesting and innovative UI applications. The announcement shows that they intend to switch from the 'bazaar' model of development to the 'cathedral,' with much tighter control of user interfaces for 'security' and 'consistency.'"

Comments

Wait, Twitter has a community?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that there's no real value to Twitter, so why would it have a community?

Re:Wait, Twitter has a community?

[feepness]

Voting is our right and our duty therefore we must vote for someone.

Homer: America, take a good look at your beloved candidates. They're nothing but hideous space reptiles. [unmasks them]
[audience gasps in terror]
Kodos: It's true, we are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It's a two-party system; you have to vote for one of us.
[murmurs]
Man1: He's right, this is a two-party system.
Man2: Well, I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate.
Kang: Go ahead, throw your vote away.

Twitter's End Game

[dagamer34]

What this really means is that Twitter doesn't want users to have clients that outright refuse to display Promoted Tweets or things like the #dickbar. Seems they are all about the money now...

Re:Twitter's End Game

[MrEricSir]

Considering how much money they've made up until this point, that's hardly surprising.

Did they really think this through?

[Jugalator]

The client variety for all tastes is what seems to have in part made Twitter so big.

It has unusually diverse clients, and has become a strong platform. And now they throw the "platform" part out to just make it a grey, boring old school software application with no reach for varying interests and usage scenarios in their community?

OK, well... It's their choice of course. But good job in trying to keep the extremely high popularity up. That's all I can say...

I think they'll need our best wishes.

Twitter was where many companies work their butts off to be. A company with their own client, but also a rich ecosystem of clients. Apparently, some don't like that, and *willingly* deconstruct their achievements.

That isn't what they said.

[LWATCDR]

"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. "
Sound like they are just setting some standards.

Re:Fork it

[davester666]

It already supports compression. Common methods of compression include: removal of vowels, homonyms [like 'ur' instead of 'your'], etc...