In pursuit of business plan, Twitter riles developers

11.07.2012
The changes Twitter is making to its API policies triggered a wave of protest among its developers, but they might be necessary for the strategy Twitter has laid out for itself to make money and keep growing its service.

The stricter rules on how developers can make use of its Twitter stream appear to be tied to the company's efforts to bring in more revenue from advertising and potentially other sources. To achieve that, Twitter believes it must provide a consistent experience for users who access its service, instead of the hodgepodge of interfaces they have today from third-party clients.

That means tighter rules for developers, who are now being encouraged to develop within Twitter itself. But the way Twitter has communicated the changes, as well as the ambiguity of its guidelines -- it hasn't said yet exactly what its "stricter rules" will entail -- have stirred discontent among some developers.

The most recent scuffle began with a two weeks ago, in which Twitter reminded developers it doesn't want them to build Twitter clients that mimic the "mainstream Twitter consumer client experience."

Instead, it wants them to focus on building "more interactive experiences within expanded tweets." It highlighted its recently introduced "," which are tweets that can be expanded with a click to display an image, video clip or the summary of a news story, for instance, all within the standard Twitter interface.

"The technology behind expanded Tweets ... gives developers and publishers a way to tell richer stories on Twitter, directly within Tweets and drive traffic back to their sites," it said.