I think developers, other than those who have built a business serving in-stream ads, are freaking out for no reason. Let's start with the in- stream ad companies. If you built these applications and did not see this coming you deserve this. Apps that used the Twitter API to serve in-stream ads are directly competing with Twitter core business, or at least the one they plan to use to monetize their product. Twitter has every reason in the world to get these applications of the site and out of the timelines.
Based on Dick Costello's post, it seems as if applications that do not directly interfere with Twitter's core product will continue to thrive. "We believe there are opportunities to sell ads, build vertical applications, provide breakthrough analytics, and more. Companies are selling real-time display ads or other kinds of mobile ads around the timelines on many Twitter clients, and we derive no explicit value from those ads. That’s fine. We imagine there will be all sorts of other third-party monetization engines that crop up in the vicinity of the timeline." Companies like StockTwits and Flixup are safe. Companies like ad.ly and 140Proof are not. The low hanging fruit was in-stream advertising. This made perfect sense because 1). it was easy to execute and scale and 2). Twitter was not doing it. Founders of these apps were very short-sighted if they thought they would be able to continue to play in-stream at, what Costello is saying, was at the users and the platforms expense. Developers need to innovate and figure out ways to leverage the power of Twitter's data and monetize outside of Twitter.com and outside of the timeline. On May 24, 4:34 pm, Eric Woodward <e...@nambu.com> wrote: > At this point I am not why anyone that cares enough to be in this > group is surprised. It is clear that Twitter is going to take > *everything* for themselves. I don't understand why anyone would > continue to develop on Twitter's platform as anything more than a > hobby. First it was us (Twitter clients) and now it is the ad > platforms' turn. Next it will be somebody else. > > Lots of us enjoy developing for its own sake, and that is what Twitter > is now: a feature you add to something else, or a hobby activity. Time > we all just faced up to it. > > --ejw > > Eric Woodward > Email: e...@nambu.com > > On May 24, 9:23 am, Mo <maur...@moluv.com> wrote: > > > You guys couldn't have hinted about this to me at the developer meetup > > or at Chirp before I built up a team? Thanks.
