Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 8:43 AM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: Would you mind taking a stab at clarifying Section 5.E of the new TOS, which reads, 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 believe this primarily exists to say you may not use our own API to compete with us. But it does seem overly broad. -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
Steve, thanks for the email. Some inline responses below... -- Ryan Sarver @rsarver http://twitter.com/rsarver On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 8:24 PM, Steve Eley sfe...@gmail.com wrote: On Mar 11, 4:18 pm, Ryan Sarver rsar...@twitter.com wrote: 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. Something doesn't sound right here. The official reasoning has some contradictions in it: * You're telling us that Twitter's own apps are topping the market, and that an overwhelming majority of people are engaging with Twitter using your own tools. 90% logging in once a month is one measurement. We can't currently measure tweet views which would be the best measurement of consumption. I wouldn't say that Twitter is the overwhelming majority of the way people consume twitter, but it's the majority and trending in that favor. * In the same message, you say that people are confused about how to engage with Twitter. You blame non-standard third party interfaces -- but if they're just a small minority of user contact points with Twitter, wouldn't the impact be fairly low-level and mitigated by the superior first-party experience? While Twitter owned and operated clients are the majority, but not the overwhelming majority, there is still a lot of confusion for mainstream users across the fractured experiences. * In that message and in subsequent followups, you tell us that client applications will be held to a higher bar. This seems to imply that the standards for acceptance or rejection are qualitative; however, the revised Terms of Service imply that they are objective. Which is it? Is it If you implement X, we'll cut you off -- or is it We encourage you not to implement X, but if you do, we'll decide whether you're any good at it? Clearly people have taken this to mean something I didn't intend. When I said higher bar I meant that relative to the previous TOS. I don't mean it in an arbitrary, qualitative way. While we don't recommend it as a business, we aren't going to be turning off clients as long as they stay within the articulated TOS. Obviously there are a number of smaller international markets, use cases and devices that our clients don't address and these are great for niche clients. Fundamentally, here's what doesn't smell right to me: if the superior quality of Twitter's first-party platform is winning in the marketplace, as you say it is, _why bother with this?_ The perceived threat to the user experience doesn't make sense. New users who don't understand Twitter yet aren't going to pick up third-party clients; they're going to follow the brand name. They'll go to Twitter.com, or buy a book, or ask their friends. (If the books or friends are confused, new API terms won't help.) Why bother? Because on a weekly, if not daily basis, we get asked by developers, entrepreneurs, angels and VCs for more guidance and transparency. If we know we are going to invest heavily in a space and feel that a consistent user experience is key to onboarding more new users and optimizing the network effects, then we need to communicate that to everyone. The email was meant to be blunt, and we know it's not a message that everyone wants to hear. Some people have taken acception to the bluntness of the language, but I think brutal honesty is better than dancing around the topic with niceties. GOOD third-party clients don't compete with Twitter for new user share. They pick up the power users who've used Twitter for a while and want to use it more, or who have particular needs or tastes, or who _like_ crazy non-standard designs. Shutting them down won't help new users, and it won't enable current users to do things better. It'll just turn power users into non-power users, or in some cases into non-users. The most valuable users don't settle for 'good enough.' If Twitter doesn't let them do things their own way, they'll find a platform that does, or make one. I totally agree, hence why I called out applications focused on the enterprise market and marketers like HootSuite, CoTweet and Seesmic. And again, to be really clear, we aren't shutting down any clients, even ones focused on the mainstream consumer experience. However, if you're going to build a client, we would like to see more of them like CoTweet that focus on a specific audience with specific needs not addressed by the core Twitter clients. BAD third-party clients don't compete with Twitter at all. They just don't have users. People don't use
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
Dewald, sorry if this isn't clear. The intent is to allow developers to still post to other 3rd party networks like Facebook, Identica, LinkedIn, etc. What we don't want to allow is for a client to use our content to build their own competing status service and by sending content to services that the user did not intend to send them to. Users trust us with their content and we want them to have an idea of where the content goes and how it is going to be used. Hope that helps clarify. Ryan -- Ryan Sarver @rsarver http://twitter.com/rsarver On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 8:43 AM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: Taylor, Would you mind taking a stab at clarifying Section 5.E of the new TOS, which reads, 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. It appears to say that a Client is not allowed to offer its users the ability to create status updates on other services (StatusNet, Facebook, etc.). Had it not been for the or other data collected from end users I would have interpreted it that one cannot use any Twitter Content (user data and tweets obtained via the Twitter API) and feed that Twitter Data into other and/or competing social network platforms. But, or other data collected from end users seems to suggest that one cannot so much as offer any support for any other and/ or competing social network platform. Meaning, if you have a Client, you can support Twitter OR Everything Else, not both. On Mar 14, 11:12 am, Taylor Singletary taylorsinglet...@twitter.com wrote: Hi Adam, Thanks for your comments as always. I can help clarify a bit around how clients will be held to higher standards. Criteria we may examine include: is the application in tune with the spirit of the developer guidelines? Does the application refrain from storing username password if it's using xAuth? Are tweets displayed with the proper attribution? Are the actions presented for the tweet appropriate in respect to it being a tweet? Does the application frame portions of our mobile site? Does it store non-public user data in a public way? Does the application provide a privacy policy? Is the client application paying for installation on mobile carriers? The new terms also offer some examples that are reasonably specific: A. 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. B. You may not pay, or offer to pay, third parties for distribution of your Client. This includes offering compensation for downloads (other than transactional fees), pre-installations, or other mechanisms of traffic acquisition. C. Your Client cannot frame or otherwise reproduce significant portions of the Twitter service. You should display Twitter Content from the Twitter API. D. Do not store non-public user profile data or content. E. 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 Using a Twitter client is like using an extension of Twitter, and though the user interfaces may change we want to ensure that the user experience is consistent, whether it's consistency in the actions a user can perform with a Tweet, the way their private information is treated, or how slowly, quickly, and with what tact advertising flows or does not flow through the network. Taylor On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 9:55 PM, Adam Green 140...@gmail.com wrote: Yes! Transparency! That is what we are really craving. That is the subtext for every developer responding to this thread. What we all want is transparency about being shut down. Why does Twitter revoke literally hundreds of API tokens / apps a week as Ryan said? Is it for something obvious, like pumping out thousand of spam tweets or abusive follows, or is it for something innocent, like not putting the right text on a tweet button? I have never seen a description of an app that was blocked, except for a few loons like Edward H. What if you told us about apps that get blocked as examples, and explain what they did wrong? You don't even have to identify them by name. Just explain exactly what type of transgressions are causing rejection. That could calm people down. Who doesn't meet the high bar and why? I know high bar has a lot of meaning to you Twitter guys, since you all use the same term (a real example of groupthink, BTW), but it means nothing to us. Tell us where this high bar is exactly, by showing examples of not reaching it. Then we can learn and improve, rather than guessing at what you mean. Nobody
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
Adam, I don't know how else to make this any more clear. As long as you stay within the rules, your app will not get shut off. We would like to see, and recommend that, developers focus on bigger opportunities with more potential than writing another consumer client app. -- Ryan Sarver @rsarver http://twitter.com/rsarver On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Adam Green 140...@gmail.com wrote: But you will allow it, right? Even if it is thinking small, it will not be blocked? That is our problem. We can't separate business advice from a warning to prepare to be cut off. We can't help watching the hand that holds the kill switch. It makes it hard to hear what you say. Have patience, and keep explaining please. If something will not cause a ban, then say this explicitly to us. Don't just think it was implied. On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 11:20 AM, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.comwrote: my statement here was not providing small on the size of the company, but rather, small on the size of the idea. to re-iterate, making a piece of software that simply renders home_timeline is thinking too small. On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 6:21 PM, Lil Peck lilp...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 7:45 PM, @siculars sicul...@gmail.com wrote: @raffi @rsarver, I wrote up my two cents earlier, http://siculars.posterous.com/twitter-monoculture. I just don't appreciate the direction you all are going in. @raffi, I spoke with you at the CU recruiting event a few weeks back and I got to tell you that if I were asked I would tell those kids to reconsider working at twitter and possibly consider a Twitter competitor. you say building clients is ... Thinking too small I would say your policy change is thinking small and alienating your ardent supporters. To which I would add, what is Twitter to arbitrate that which is and is not too small? Has Twitter subscribed to the fallacious bigger is always better philosophy? How small is too small? Less than $25 million in startup funds? OR One creative, fun loving person and their sweat equity? -- 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 -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Services http://twitter.com/raffi -- 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 -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
That is perfectly clear, Ryan. The fact that people are still asking if they have Twitter's permission to build a client and writing blog posts that say they don't, shows that there is still confusion out there. My goal throughout this has been to get simple statements like yours into this list from Twitter HQ that eliminate the confusion. If someone at Twitter could be given the task of saying what you just said every time someone asks Why can't I build a client?, or Does this mean I have to stop building my client?, the confusion will eventually be removed. It may take days or weeks to reverse all the negative press. In the future, please remember that every time you mention the hundreds of apps you turn off each week developers stop reading anything else. It is not a good way to start a conversation. Thanks for your patience. On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 9:28 PM, Ryan Sarver rsar...@twitter.com wrote: Adam, I don't know how else to make this any more clear. As long as you stay within the rules, your app will not get shut off. We would like to see, and recommend that, developers focus on bigger opportunities with more potential than writing another consumer client app. -- Ryan Sarver @rsarver On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Adam Green 140...@gmail.com wrote: But you will allow it, right? Even if it is thinking small, it will not be blocked? That is our problem. We can't separate business advice from a warning to prepare to be cut off. We can't help watching the hand that holds the kill switch. It makes it hard to hear what you say. Have patience, and keep explaining please. If something will not cause a ban, then say this explicitly to us. Don't just think it was implied. On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 11:20 AM, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.com wrote: my statement here was not providing small on the size of the company, but rather, small on the size of the idea. to re-iterate, making a piece of software that simply renders home_timeline is thinking too small. On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 6:21 PM, Lil Peck lilp...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 7:45 PM, @siculars sicul...@gmail.com wrote: @raffi @rsarver, I wrote up my two cents earlier, http://siculars.posterous.com/twitter-monoculture. I just don't appreciate the direction you all are going in. @raffi, I spoke with you at the CU recruiting event a few weeks back and I got to tell you that if I were asked I would tell those kids to reconsider working at twitter and possibly consider a Twitter competitor. you say building clients is ... Thinking too small I would say your policy change is thinking small and alienating your ardent supporters. To which I would add, what is Twitter to arbitrate that which is and is not too small? Has Twitter subscribed to the fallacious bigger is always better philosophy? How small is too small? Less than $25 million in startup funds? OR One creative, fun loving person and their sweat equity? -- 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 -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Services http://twitter.com/raffi -- 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 -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
Hi Adam, Thanks for your comments as always. I can help clarify a bit around how clients will be held to higher standards. Criteria we may examine include: is the application in tune with the spirit of the developer guidelines? Does the application refrain from storing username password if it's using xAuth? Are tweets displayed with the proper attribution? Are the actions presented for the tweet appropriate in respect to it being a tweet? Does the application frame portions of our mobile site? Does it store non-public user data in a public way? Does the application provide a privacy policy? Is the client application paying for installation on mobile carriers? The new terms also offer some examples that are reasonably specific: A. 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. B. You may not pay, or offer to pay, third parties for distribution of your Client. This includes offering compensation for downloads (other than transactional fees), pre-installations, or other mechanisms of traffic acquisition. C. Your Client cannot frame or otherwise reproduce significant portions of the Twitter service. You should display Twitter Content from the Twitter API. D. Do not store non-public user profile data or content. E. 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 Using a Twitter client is like using an extension of Twitter, and though the user interfaces may change we want to ensure that the user experience is consistent, whether it's consistency in the actions a user can perform with a Tweet, the way their private information is treated, or how slowly, quickly, and with what tact advertising flows or does not flow through the network. Taylor On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 9:55 PM, Adam Green 140...@gmail.com wrote: Yes! Transparency! That is what we are really craving. That is the subtext for every developer responding to this thread. What we all want is transparency about being shut down. Why does Twitter revoke literally hundreds of API tokens / apps a week as Ryan said? Is it for something obvious, like pumping out thousand of spam tweets or abusive follows, or is it for something innocent, like not putting the right text on a tweet button? I have never seen a description of an app that was blocked, except for a few loons like Edward H. What if you told us about apps that get blocked as examples, and explain what they did wrong? You don't even have to identify them by name. Just explain exactly what type of transgressions are causing rejection. That could calm people down. Who doesn't meet the high bar and why? I know high bar has a lot of meaning to you Twitter guys, since you all use the same term (a real example of groupthink, BTW), but it means nothing to us. Tell us where this high bar is exactly, by showing examples of not reaching it. Then we can learn and improve, rather than guessing at what you mean. Nobody here would bitch and moan if they didn't really want to learn something. Please, help us by giving us examples. On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:07 AM, Matt Harris mhar...@twitter.com wrote: Innovation and development with the APIs are not being prevented. There have always been guidelines, and rules of the road so we all know what is and isn't allowed. If you build a client you are touching the majority of Twitter features. The APIs allow you to do this, and Twitter and your users trust you to use them in the way the terms or service allow. The high bar covers your use of these methods, and how you present information back to the user. The ToS covers this but there are always situations where the application of them isn't clear. — Let's have those discussions with your use cases applied for the benefit of everyone. The direction, and motivation here is transparency. You asked us what it looks like from the inside out. It can be uncomfortable, sure, but I believe it's better we all know how it looks on both sides. Without us saying how we see it, how can we have these discussions? @themattharris On Mar 13, 2011, at 20:21, Lil Peck lilp...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 7:45 PM, @siculars sicul...@gmail.com wrote: @raffi @rsarver, I wrote up my two cents earlier, http://siculars.posterous.com/twitter-monoculture. I just don't appreciate the direction you all are going in. @raffi, I spoke with you at the CU recruiting event a few weeks back and I got to tell you that if I were asked I would tell those kids to reconsider working at twitter and possibly consider a Twitter competitor. you say building clients is ... Thinking too small I would say your policy change is thinking small and alienating your ardent
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
my statement here was not providing small on the size of the company, but rather, small on the size of the idea. to re-iterate, making a piece of software that simply renders home_timeline is thinking too small. On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 6:21 PM, Lil Peck lilp...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 7:45 PM, @siculars sicul...@gmail.com wrote: @raffi @rsarver, I wrote up my two cents earlier, http://siculars.posterous.com/twitter-monoculture. I just don't appreciate the direction you all are going in. @raffi, I spoke with you at the CU recruiting event a few weeks back and I got to tell you that if I were asked I would tell those kids to reconsider working at twitter and possibly consider a Twitter competitor. you say building clients is ... Thinking too small I would say your policy change is thinking small and alienating your ardent supporters. To which I would add, what is Twitter to arbitrate that which is and is not too small? Has Twitter subscribed to the fallacious bigger is always better philosophy? How small is too small? Less than $25 million in startup funds? OR One creative, fun loving person and their sweat equity? -- 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 -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Services http://twitter.com/raffi -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
But you will allow it, right? Even if it is thinking small, it will not be blocked? That is our problem. We can't separate business advice from a warning to prepare to be cut off. We can't help watching the hand that holds the kill switch. It makes it hard to hear what you say. Have patience, and keep explaining please. If something will not cause a ban, then say this explicitly to us. Don't just think it was implied. On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 11:20 AM, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.com wrote: my statement here was not providing small on the size of the company, but rather, small on the size of the idea. to re-iterate, making a piece of software that simply renders home_timeline is thinking too small. On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 6:21 PM, Lil Peck lilp...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 7:45 PM, @siculars sicul...@gmail.com wrote: @raffi @rsarver, I wrote up my two cents earlier, http://siculars.posterous.com/twitter-monoculture. I just don't appreciate the direction you all are going in. @raffi, I spoke with you at the CU recruiting event a few weeks back and I got to tell you that if I were asked I would tell those kids to reconsider working at twitter and possibly consider a Twitter competitor. you say building clients is ... Thinking too small I would say your policy change is thinking small and alienating your ardent supporters. To which I would add, what is Twitter to arbitrate that which is and is not too small? Has Twitter subscribed to the fallacious bigger is always better philosophy? How small is too small? Less than $25 million in startup funds? OR One creative, fun loving person and their sweat equity? -- 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 -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Services http://twitter.com/raffi -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
My 2 cents... The reason for the perceived mixed messages for some of us is because many developers don't, and never have been interested in doing Twitter development as a business. I've created a dozen Twitter clients apps over the last 5 years, some of which received enough users and press coverage that I could have attempted to turn it into a business, but I didn't. Why? Because it doesn't interest me. I do it for the challenge and the learning experience. So, the things we hear Twitter saying are Don't build clients anymore as well as Client apps make bad business. Well, first, as long as the APIs are active and it's not against the TOS, I'm still going to build, develop, and use my own clients. Second, I don't care that it makes bad business, that's isn't a concern to me. Third, developers can determine for themselves what seems like a smart business decision or not. Fourth, frankly, Twitter Inc has never been regarded as an expert in monetization strategies. Plus, this is info we already knew. For the most part, building a company whose main product is a Twitter client hasn't been a good business decision for a few years (if ever, outside of a lucky few). But on the other hand, there are still markets where it could be good business. For example, where is the official Twitter client for webOS? Messages like Don't build clients anymore and no official Twitter app on webOS does nothing but hurt the ecosystem for thousands of users. If I were a developer for one of the popular webOS clients, I'd be pretty pissed right now. Heck, as a webOS user I'm not thrilled. I'm sure this is applicable to other ecosystems too. The point is, Twitter should be more vocal about what it is going to do as opposed to coy suggestions to developers (which some perceive as threats) about what they shouldn't do. Twitter is going to heavily focus on front-end user experiences across all platforms? Great! Leave it at that. Let developers decide for themselves what are good/bad ideas. Just arm us with the knowledge of your plans, and we'll worry about our own. Finally, Twitter, you should be excited to compete with your developers. Much of the innovation over the years has been a product of the developer user community. Things like mentions hashtags came from your users. Features like saved searches, lists, trends, and ajax driven clients were inventions of developers years before they made it into Twitter.com. Essentially, New Twitter is just a compilation of the best features from all the 3rd party clients. Do not be hostile. Do not attack them with your TOS. Do not suspend tokens without working with the developer first. Doing these things hurts the community, which in turn hurts you. Your users are your product. Not your platform. Not your website. Not your ads. Your users. - @derek On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 10:50 AM, Pizik gm.pi...@gmail.com wrote: I get the distinct feeling of someone saying something that they do not really believe in. Money makes puppets as ever. -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
Chucking in a few lines here too ... On 14 March 2011 20:03, Derek Gathright drg...@gmail.com wrote: I do it for the challenge and the learning experience. Ditto. I worked up and 'beta'd' an archive service a while ago but concluded that Twitter was likely to introduce its own service in that area (given it had at that time lists and other services had suddenly become available 'in house) so I ceased work on it but continued to use it for my own interest. It is a one-way archive and can't be used to forward to any other service plus it is comprised solely and only of public data (tweets) of users who requested it. This -- to me -- says it should still be OK on the revised tos. For example, where is the official Twitter client for webOS? Messages like Don't build clients anymore and no official Twitter app on webOS does nothing but hurt the ecosystem for thousands of users. If I were a developer for one of the popular webOS clients, I'd be pretty pissed right now. Heck, as a webOS user I'm not thrilled. I'm sure this is applicable to other ecosystems too. As another WebOS user here I've tried the 'official' mobile web interface through the browser, and one of the other clients available, but neither have given me the user experience I'd like or think could be possible, so had been thinking of turning my mind to it. But then on Friday night without any notice or explanation my access *as a user* to twitter was suspended. As a learning experience it has been 'interesting'; the system obliges a user to initiate a ticket requesting reinstatement -- though over 24 hours later I've had nothing back except an initial automated 'received' reply -- and a set of timestamps on the ticket thread which are massively in error. I've done nothing contrary to the TOS and though I was loathe to bring it up here there is just the tiniest wisp of a thought at the back of my mind of whether my development activities have been the cause? If so this should be worrying to everyone here. Anyway, for anyone who wants to know more you can read it on my blog at http://www.alisonw.com/ But back on the main issue here, I can understand why Twitter wants to make this move -- from a business pov it is a no-brainer to do so -- but given the sheer number of developers who have been encouraged in the past to get involved with using the API to provide services it is worrying that such a substantial revision has happened. Alison Wheeler (AlisonW) -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
I guess what I would like to know is since I'm a hobbyist, am I going to get my token revoked just because I write a client that is just for my use to better my skills in learning a specific programming language and share with others things I've learned. -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. On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 1:22 AM, Rich rhyl...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Raffi So if I'm reading what you wrote correctly, simple clients that just display a timeline, post etc are thinking too small and there is no business there, something I can agree with. However many of us have, what I'd call a value added client. Sure we have the basics of a client, but we have what I'd like to think are added value services such as tweet scheduling, augmented reality of tweeters around you, user streams, draft management, and so much more. Are we to think that these are actually going to be fine for the time being, so long as obviously we comply with the ToS. What you guys seem to be saying though is don't build clients because it won't make money, but some people seem to fail to grasp some of us develop apps like this because we enjoy it... it's a hobby and a passion and that doesn't always involve tons of profit. Services such as Seesmic started out in the simple Client business, remember Twhirl, etc. Sure they grew into something enterprise, but most of us start out at the bottom and with the basics. Richard On Mar 13, 2:39 am, 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.comwrote: 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. .. 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. -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Serviceshttp://twitter.com/raffi -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
Yes, Raffi's posts have made me feel a *lot* better about all of this. I hope his comments will be reflected in some way by an 'official' message from Twitter. It's not that I don't believe Raffi, I do, but it bothers me that Ryan or someone hasn't yet come back to explicitly confirm Raffi's comments (which, it should be noted, came with a disclaimer). -Craig On 13 March 2011 11:38, Rich rhyl...@gmail.com wrote: Similar situation, although Raffi's response above is slightly more reassuring. On Mar 13, 3:34 pm, Jef Poskanzer jef.poskan...@gmail.com wrote: I have a set of apps that basically just reproduces the official Twitter user experience, exactly what Twitter says we should not do. However, I add value by running on a platform that Twitter does not support and is unlikely to ever support. I believe this should be allowed and encouraged and would appreciate a statement to that effect. Furthermore, this is probably not the only exception to the don't just reproduce Twitter rule. Please consider that there may be entire areas of innovation that you have not thought of - that's why it's called innovation. -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
i, personally, totally concur. what i don't think anybody can do is fully predict what platforms twitter will develop for next (although, you probably can make a guess as you see market-share play out). what i would say is that, if you are building a twitter client, twitter, as a company, will probably hold you to a much higher bar than those who are not. we do have a strong opinion regarding rendering, display, interaction, etc. innovation, in my mind, is around doing something revolutionary, and not necessarily evolutionary. there is plenty to do out there that is not evolutionary. On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 8:34 AM, Jef Poskanzer jef.poskan...@gmail.comwrote: I have a set of apps that basically just reproduces the official Twitter user experience, exactly what Twitter says we should not do. However, I add value by running on a platform that Twitter does not support and is unlikely to ever support. I believe this should be allowed and encouraged and would appreciate a statement to that effect. Furthermore, this is probably not the only exception to the don't just reproduce Twitter rule. Please consider that there may be entire areas of innovation that you have not thought of - that's why it's called innovation. -- 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 -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Services http://twitter.com/raffi -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
You still have the ability to change to a newly developed client if you want to. Sent from my iPhone On 13 Mar 2011, at 18:50, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: I used to be counted in the 90% until they defaced Tweetie, sorry, Twitter for iPhone with that moronic #DickBar that shoves irrelevant nonsense in your face. It's like yelling at you, I KNOW YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THIS AND HAVE NO INTEREST IN THIS, BUT HERE, TAKE IT ANYWAY. LEARN #WHATNOTTOSAYTOAFATWOMAN AND TRY TO #FARTLIKEJUSTINBIEBER AND OH, JUST WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, HERE'S ANOTHER STUPID ONE THAT'S NOT TRENDING AT ALL, BUT SOMEONE PAID US TO SHOVE IT IN YOUR FACE!!! Are any of you guys developing a better Twitter client for iPhone, because I'll switch in a heartbeat. Oh... Wait On Mar 13, 3:25 pm, artesea ryancul...@gmail.com wrote: Except every day I hear people go I hate new twitter, I want feature y, I wish it didn't do that. I run a port of dabr, I don't do it for the money (no ads on the site) I do it for the love of programming. Working out ways to get thumbnail images in to the timeline. To have different displays depending on the device or choice of the user. Being able to come up with an idea whilst at work, and 2 hours at the keyboard when I get home to have it working. The number of users on my client is probably five, but I'm finding it odd that Twitter insist that I'm wasting my efforts. If you are so confident that you have a large enough market of the timeline clients why stop competition? Ryan ps, I'm guessing that I'm counted in the 90% who use a twitter client, but it's install on my android device any is only used to sync up to my contacts. On Mar 13, 4:38 am, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.com wrote: hey adam. i can't speak officially and definitively, however, we don't think there are as many business opportunities in making a piece of software that *simply* renders any of our timeline methods (/1/statuses/home_timeline,/1/statuses/mentions, lists, etc.). that's your #1. you're right, we do think there is a lot to be done with tweet summarization, curation, selection, matching, etc. focus your efforts on that and just follow our lead with tweet rendering and interaction. does that help? On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:45 PM, Adam Green 140...@gmail.com wrote: 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. On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.comwrote: 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? On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Shannon Whitley shannon.whit...@gmail.com wrote: 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
On Sun, 13 Mar 2011 11:49:45 -0700 (PDT), Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: I used to be counted in the 90% until they defaced Tweetie, sorry, Twitter for iPhone with that moronic #DickBar that shoves irrelevant nonsense in your face. It's like yelling at you, I KNOW YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THIS AND HAVE NO INTEREST IN THIS, BUT HERE, TAKE IT ANYWAY. LEARN #WHATNOTTOSAYTOAFATWOMAN AND TRY TO #FARTLIKEJUSTINBIEBER AND OH, JUST WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, HERE'S ANOTHER STUPID ONE THAT'S NOT TRENDING AT ALL, BUT SOMEONE PAID US TO SHOVE IT IN YOUR FACE!!! Are any of you guys developing a better Twitter client for iPhone, because I'll switch in a heartbeat. Oh... Wait Dewald, you have to remember that Twitter isn't the only granfalloon that one must deal with on the iPhone - there's Apple, too. If Steve Jobs didn't like the #DickBar, how long do you suppose it would last? ;-) -- http://twitter.com/znmeb http://borasky-research.net A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. -- Paul Erdős -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
On Sun, 13 Mar 2011 12:21:20 -0700 (PDT), Jef Poskanzer jef.poskan...@gmail.com wrote: On my Android phone I have both the official Twitter client and Twidroid installed. If they had more or less the same functionailty and useability I would prefer to use the official client. However I only use Twidroid, because Twitter's official app is inferior. I could explain why in detail if anyone is interested, but it's not a subtle matter, it's gross and obvious. Twitter apparently believes that no one should bother making a plain old timeline-displaying client because Twitter's official ones are all you need. And yet even with Twidroid's prior example to copy from, Twitter's official Android client is still unusable. I say this one example shows that the new policy Ryan posted is at best premature. I've been holding off on the Android issue, but since you brought it up ... I have a Verizon HTC Droid Incredible. I've tried *all* the Twitter clients. I've tried the one that's built in, Peep, I've tried every release of Twitter's native client. I've tried the mobile Twitter web site in the browser. I've tried Twidroyd, Touiteur, TweetDeck, HootSuite, Seesmic and probably a few others I've forgotten. The most recent version of Twitter's native app is the *only* one of that line that I consider even marginally usable. And yet in terms of usability, it is still way behind Seesmic. Seesmic is the one I use. I'd *love* to use Twitter's native app, but until it does everything Seesmic does, it's not going to happen. -- http://twitter.com/znmeb http://borasky-research.net A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. -- Paul Erdős -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
Relevance in microblogging. Big opportunity but very difficult to define. Last i read, even google is stumped. Cheers Umashankar Das On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 1:21 AM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: Ed, I don't have an issue with the size, placing, or color of the #DickBar box. I have an issue with the fact that it shoves stuff in my face that is of absolutely no interest to me. Google got ads right. When your search results include a list of news articles about the Japan earthquake, they don't show ads next to them that yell, #WHATNOTTOSAYTOAFATWOMAN. On Mar 13, 4:18 pm, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky zn...@borasky- research.net wrote: On Sun, 13 Mar 2011 11:49:45 -0700 (PDT), Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: I used to be counted in the 90% until they defaced Tweetie, sorry, Twitter for iPhone with that moronic #DickBar that shoves irrelevant nonsense in your face. It's like yelling at you, I KNOW YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THIS AND HAVE NO INTEREST IN THIS, BUT HERE, TAKE IT ANYWAY. LEARN #WHATNOTTOSAYTOAFATWOMAN AND TRY TO #FARTLIKEJUSTINBIEBER AND OH, JUST WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, HERE'S ANOTHER STUPID ONE THAT'S NOT TRENDING AT ALL, BUT SOMEONE PAID US TO SHOVE IT IN YOUR FACE!!! Are any of you guys developing a better Twitter client for iPhone, because I'll switch in a heartbeat. Oh... Wait Dewald, you have to remember that Twitter isn't the only granfalloon that one must deal with on the iPhone - there's Apple, too. If Steve Jobs didn't like the #DickBar, how long do you suppose it would last? ;-) -- http://twitter.com/znmebhttp://borasky-research.net A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. -- Paul Erdős -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 01:32:27 +0530, Umashankar Das umashankar...@gmail.com wrote: Relevance in microblogging. Big opportunity but very difficult to define. Last i read, even google is stumped. Cheers Umashankar Das I don't think it's relevance that stumps Google so much as privacy. It's a lot of work for users to control how much they reveal and to whom, and the Holy Grail of permission marketing - timely, relevant and personal - runs square up against that. I'm cynical enough to think that the sole consumer benefit that has come from social media, including Twitter and Facebook, is the ability to talk back to granfalloons like the State Department, United Airlines and Google. Everything else about the technologies simply reduces costs to marketers, and those cost reductions are not passed on to consumers in the form of less expensive or higher-quality products and services. ;-) -- http://twitter.com/znmeb http://borasky-research.net A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. -- Paul Erdős -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
i don't think we've said its a waste of time, especially for something like dabr. and, again, its not that we're stopping the competition -- we've said that if you are building a regular timeline client, we're going to be holding you to a higher bar. in our opinion, its not a good -business- to be in. i would love to see dabr, and other smaller, niche clients that are done out of enjoyment of coding, love of programming, etc. to continue! On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 11:25 AM, artesea ryancul...@gmail.com wrote: Except every day I hear people go I hate new twitter, I want feature y, I wish it didn't do that. I run a port of dabr, I don't do it for the money (no ads on the site) I do it for the love of programming. Working out ways to get thumbnail images in to the timeline. To have different displays depending on the device or choice of the user. Being able to come up with an idea whilst at work, and 2 hours at the keyboard when I get home to have it working. The number of users on my client is probably five, but I'm finding it odd that Twitter insist that I'm wasting my efforts. If you are so confident that you have a large enough market of the timeline clients why stop competition? Ryan ps, I'm guessing that I'm counted in the 90% who use a twitter client, but it's install on my android device any is only used to sync up to my contacts. On Mar 13, 4:38 am, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.com wrote: hey adam. i can't speak officially and definitively, however, we don't think there are as many business opportunities in making a piece of software that *simply* renders any of our timeline methods (/1/statuses/home_timeline,/1/statuses/mentions, lists, etc.). that's your #1. you're right, we do think there is a lot to be done with tweet summarization, curation, selection, matching, etc. focus your efforts on that and just follow our lead with tweet rendering and interaction. does that help? On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:45 PM, Adam Green 140...@gmail.com wrote: 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. On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.com wrote: 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? On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Shannon Whitley shannon.whit...@gmail.com wrote: 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
To be clear, Raffi is clearly articulating the situation. It's a complex thing and we can't expect to get it perfectly right the first time, so the dialogue and questions are great. Raffi is also a much better communicator than I am :) -- Ryan Sarver @rsarver http://twitter.com/rsarver On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Craig cpa...@gmail.com wrote: Yes, Raffi's posts have made me feel a *lot* better about all of this. I hope his comments will be reflected in some way by an 'official' message from Twitter. It's not that I don't believe Raffi, I do, but it bothers me that Ryan or someone hasn't yet come back to explicitly confirm Raffi's comments (which, it should be noted, came with a disclaimer). -Craig On 13 March 2011 11:38, Rich rhyl...@gmail.com wrote: Similar situation, although Raffi's response above is slightly more reassuring. On Mar 13, 3:34 pm, Jef Poskanzer jef.poskan...@gmail.com wrote: I have a set of apps that basically just reproduces the official Twitter user experience, exactly what Twitter says we should not do. However, I add value by running on a platform that Twitter does not support and is unlikely to ever support. I believe this should be allowed and encouraged and would appreciate a statement to that effect. Furthermore, this is probably not the only exception to the don't just reproduce Twitter rule. Please consider that there may be entire areas of innovation that you have not thought of - that's why it's called innovation. -- 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 -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
I don't know what it's not a good business to be in means. Ryan has been posting this statement numerous times on his Twitter account as well. Is Twitter saying We believe that a Twitter client will not make a lot of money. Go ahead and try but don't say we didn't tell you so if you make no money.? Or are you saying Don't go into the Twitter client business because we may shut you down at will for any reason? The other statement I keep seeing is that we'll be held to a higher bar. What does that mean? Does it mean new Twitter clients might be rejected the way Apple rejects new apps? Could existing apps be shut down because they fall beneath this bar? Will we be getting any documentation specifically telling us what the criteria are? Will Twitter be doing this for all clients, or just clients that exist on the same platform as an official app (iPhone, Android, etc)? What about clients that don't exist as part of a business, such as open source apps? -Costa -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
there are two things: - twitter has started to specify what the core experience should be -- we have strong feelings around display and interaction; - twitter is poised to move extremely quickly. attempting to speak neutrally without any partisanship: IMO its a bad idea to create a business where you would have to bend at the whims of another organisation. the higher bar that we've been talking about is that scrutiny. Is Twitter saying We believe that a Twitter client will not make a lot of money. Go ahead and try but don't say we didn't tell you so if you make no money.? Or are you saying Don't go into the Twitter client business because we may shut you down at will for any reason? The other statement I keep seeing is that we'll be held to a higher bar. What does that mean? Does it mean new Twitter clients might be rejected the way Apple rejects new apps? Could existing apps be shut down because they fall beneath this bar? Will we be getting any documentation specifically telling us what the criteria are? Will Twitter be doing this for all clients, or just clients that exist on the same platform as an official app (iPhone, Android, etc)? What about clients that don't exist as part of a business, such as open source apps? -Costa -- 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 -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Services http://twitter.com/raffi -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 7:45 PM, @siculars sicul...@gmail.com wrote: @raffi @rsarver, I wrote up my two cents earlier, http://siculars.posterous.com/twitter-monoculture. I just don't appreciate the direction you all are going in. @raffi, I spoke with you at the CU recruiting event a few weeks back and I got to tell you that if I were asked I would tell those kids to reconsider working at twitter and possibly consider a Twitter competitor. you say building clients is ... Thinking too small I would say your policy change is thinking small and alienating your ardent supporters. To which I would add, what is Twitter to arbitrate that which is and is not too small? Has Twitter subscribed to the fallacious bigger is always better philosophy? How small is too small? Less than $25 million in startup funds? OR One creative, fun loving person and their sweat equity? -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
Innovation and development with the APIs are not being prevented. There have always been guidelines, and rules of the road so we all know what is and isn't allowed. If you build a client you are touching the majority of Twitter features. The APIs allow you to do this, and Twitter and your users trust you to use them in the way the terms or service allow. The high bar covers your use of these methods, and how you present information back to the user. The ToS covers this but there are always situations where the application of them isn't clear. — Let's have those discussions with your use cases applied for the benefit of everyone. The direction, and motivation here is transparency. You asked us what it looks like from the inside out. It can be uncomfortable, sure, but I believe it's better we all know how it looks on both sides. Without us saying how we see it, how can we have these discussions? @themattharris On Mar 13, 2011, at 20:21, Lil Peck lilp...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 7:45 PM, @siculars sicul...@gmail.com wrote: @raffi @rsarver, I wrote up my two cents earlier, http://siculars.posterous.com/twitter-monoculture. I just don't appreciate the direction you all are going in. @raffi, I spoke with you at the CU recruiting event a few weeks back and I got to tell you that if I were asked I would tell those kids to reconsider working at twitter and possibly consider a Twitter competitor. you say building clients is ... Thinking too small I would say your policy change is thinking small and alienating your ardent supporters. To which I would add, what is Twitter to arbitrate that which is and is not too small? Has Twitter subscribed to the fallacious bigger is always better philosophy? How small is too small? Less than $25 million in startup funds? OR One creative, fun loving person and their sweat equity? -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
Yes! Transparency! That is what we are really craving. That is the subtext for every developer responding to this thread. What we all want is transparency about being shut down. Why does Twitter revoke literally hundreds of API tokens / apps a week as Ryan said? Is it for something obvious, like pumping out thousand of spam tweets or abusive follows, or is it for something innocent, like not putting the right text on a tweet button? I have never seen a description of an app that was blocked, except for a few loons like Edward H. What if you told us about apps that get blocked as examples, and explain what they did wrong? You don't even have to identify them by name. Just explain exactly what type of transgressions are causing rejection. That could calm people down. Who doesn't meet the high bar and why? I know high bar has a lot of meaning to you Twitter guys, since you all use the same term (a real example of groupthink, BTW), but it means nothing to us. Tell us where this high bar is exactly, by showing examples of not reaching it. Then we can learn and improve, rather than guessing at what you mean. Nobody here would bitch and moan if they didn't really want to learn something. Please, help us by giving us examples. On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:07 AM, Matt Harris mhar...@twitter.com wrote: Innovation and development with the APIs are not being prevented. There have always been guidelines, and rules of the road so we all know what is and isn't allowed. If you build a client you are touching the majority of Twitter features. The APIs allow you to do this, and Twitter and your users trust you to use them in the way the terms or service allow. The high bar covers your use of these methods, and how you present information back to the user. The ToS covers this but there are always situations where the application of them isn't clear. — Let's have those discussions with your use cases applied for the benefit of everyone. The direction, and motivation here is transparency. You asked us what it looks like from the inside out. It can be uncomfortable, sure, but I believe it's better we all know how it looks on both sides. Without us saying how we see it, how can we have these discussions? @themattharris On Mar 13, 2011, at 20:21, Lil Peck lilp...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 7:45 PM, @siculars sicul...@gmail.com wrote: @raffi @rsarver, I wrote up my two cents earlier, http://siculars.posterous.com/twitter-monoculture. I just don't appreciate the direction you all are going in. @raffi, I spoke with you at the CU recruiting event a few weeks back and I got to tell you that if I were asked I would tell those kids to reconsider working at twitter and possibly consider a Twitter competitor. you say building clients is ... Thinking too small I would say your policy change is thinking small and alienating your ardent supporters. To which I would add, what is Twitter to arbitrate that which is and is not too small? Has Twitter subscribed to the fallacious bigger is always better philosophy? How small is too small? Less than $25 million in startup funds? OR One creative, fun loving person and their sweat equity? -- 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 -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
Privacy -: As I understand twitter, the data is public.[Other than private messages and protected users]. What is the concern here? I guess you are pointing to the credibility quotient of the owner of the tweet and hence his private information? Not wanting to challenge Google, but, we are developing a different algorithm. This thread sure has put a spanner on the works. But, we will work to get around it. Cheers Umashankar Das On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 2:20 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky zn...@borasky-research.net wrote: On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 01:32:27 +0530, Umashankar Das umashankar...@gmail.com wrote: Relevance in microblogging. Big opportunity but very difficult to define. Last i read, even google is stumped. Cheers Umashankar Das I don't think it's relevance that stumps Google so much as privacy. It's a lot of work for users to control how much they reveal and to whom, and the Holy Grail of permission marketing - timely, relevant and personal - runs square up against that. I'm cynical enough to think that the sole consumer benefit that has come from social media, including Twitter and Facebook, is the ability to talk back to granfalloons like the State Department, United Airlines and Google. Everything else about the technologies simply reduces costs to marketers, and those cost reductions are not passed on to consumers in the form of less expensive or higher-quality products and services. ;-) -- http://twitter.com/znmeb http://borasky-research.net A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. -- Paul Erdős -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
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. On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Mike Champion mike.champ...@gmail.comwrote: 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 On Mar 11, 3:47 pm, Eric Mill kproject...@gmail.com wrote: 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 -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
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. On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 6:45 PM, Duane Roelands duane.roela...@gmail.comwrote: Wow. Thanks for getting so many people interested in Twitter. Now get lost. This is appalling. -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
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? On 13 Mar 2011, at 00:29, Shannon Whitley 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-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. -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
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 http://twitter.com/rsarver On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 9:09 PM, Mike Champion mike.champ...@gmail.comwrote: 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 On Mar 11, 3:47 pm, Eric Mill kproject...@gmail.com wrote: 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 -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
*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. -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
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 http://twitter.com/rsarver On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 12:32 AM, David W d_wy...@yahoo.com wrote: 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. On Mar 11, 8:18 pm, Ryan Sarver rsar...@twitter.com wrote: 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
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. :) On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:47 PM, Ryan Sarver rsar...@twitter.com wrote: 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 http://twitter.com/rsarver On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 9:09 PM, Mike Champion mike.champ...@gmail.comwrote: 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 On Mar 11, 3:47 pm, Eric Mill kproject...@gmail.com wrote: 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 -- 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 -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
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 On 12 March 2011 19:47, Ryan Sarver rsar...@twitter.com wrote: 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 http://twitter.com/rsarver On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 9:09 PM, Mike Champion mike.champ...@gmail.comwrote: 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 On Mar 11, 3:47 pm, Eric Mill kproject...@gmail.com wrote: 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 -- 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 -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
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.comwrote: 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. -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Services http://twitter.com/raffi -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
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? On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 9:39 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-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. -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Services http://twitter.com/raffi -- 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 -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
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? On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Shannon Whitley shannon.whit...@gmail.comwrote: 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.comwrote: 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. .. 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. -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Serviceshttp://twitter.com/raffi -- 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 -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Services http://twitter.com/raffi -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
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. On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.com wrote: 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? On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Shannon Whitley shannon.whit...@gmail.com wrote: 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.comwrote: 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. .. 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. -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Serviceshttp://twitter.com/raffi -- 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 -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Services http://twitter.com/raffi -- 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 -- Twitter developer documentation and
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
How does one create innovative solutions, if Twitter enforces on us the stipulation, that, the view should be user oriented? It sounds like we're being told, you cannot reference tweets with content which is similar to a certain topic. Imagine the earthquake in Japan, Now, it sounds like I cannot build an app/client/website, which shows tweets which have been sent talking about this unfortunate occurrence. I've already asked if one is allowed to discuss a particularly relevant tweet on this topic. No response from Ryan. You could just say NO. That is a minimum norm of politeness. Regards Umashankar Das On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 9:15 AM, Adam Green 140...@gmail.com wrote: 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. On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.comwrote: 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? On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Shannon Whitley shannon.whit...@gmail.com wrote: 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.comwrote: 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... 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. -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Serviceshttp://twitter.com/raffi -- Twitter developer documentation and resources: http://dev.twitter.com/doc API updates via Twitter:
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
hey adam. i can't speak officially and definitively, however, we don't think there are as many business opportunities in making a piece of software that *simply* renders any of our timeline methods (/1/statuses/home_timeline,/1/statuses/mentions, lists, etc.). that's your #1. you're right, we do think there is a lot to be done with tweet summarization, curation, selection, matching, etc. focus your efforts on that and just follow our lead with tweet rendering and interaction. does that help? On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:45 PM, Adam Green 140...@gmail.com wrote: 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. On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.comwrote: 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? On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Shannon Whitley shannon.whit...@gmail.com wrote: 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.comwrote: 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... 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. -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter, Application Serviceshttp://twitter.com/raffi -- 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
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: consistency and ecosystem opportunities
Hi Raffi, * **[you're right, we do think there is a lot to be done with tweet summarization, curation, selection, matching, etc. focus your efforts on that and just follow our lead with tweet rendering and interaction.]* This statement really helps me, personally. We're not doing tweet rendering. Interaction was a like 20% of the product we are working on here. We will try to think of a workaround. If the above statement was part of Ryan's original mail, it would've helped us a lot. You've mentioned that your statement is neither official nor definitive. It would be really great if Ryan (as the head of Platform development) would discuss this. Twitter's restrictions on usage of streaming and search api's were a big bottleneck to our product. We've finally found a solution which does not overload twitter at all. Please ask Ryan if he may repeat your statement above, mentioned by you. Appreciate you putting the time into this. Regards Umashankar Das On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 10:08 AM, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.com wrote: hey adam. i can't speak officially and definitively, however, we don't think there are as many business opportunities in making a piece of software that * simply* renders any of our timeline methods (/1/statuses/home_timeline, /1/statuses/mentions, lists, etc.). that's your #1. you're right, we do think there is a lot to be done with tweet summarization, curation, selection, matching, etc. focus your efforts on that and just follow our lead with tweet rendering and interaction. does that help? On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:45 PM, Adam Green 140...@gmail.com wrote: 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. On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.comwrote: 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? On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Shannon Whitley shannon.whit...@gmail.com wrote: 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
