84
DECEMBER 2012
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
What’s more, Twitter has always
remained open to outside developers, let-
ting anyone and everyone write apps that
improved its performance and utility. The
“@”
replywas invented by users; the “#” tag
too. Company co-founder Biz Stone once
referred to this iterative process as “Twi er
teaching us what it wants to be.”
This chaotic, democratic-to-a-fault
approach is the bedrock of Twi er’s suc-
cess. But it has come with a significant
drawback: There isn’t enoughmoney in it.
The main issue facing Twitter today
is that there are thousands of ways to
access the site’s data, meaning users can
easily bypass twitter.com (and the apps
the company publishes). And if you’re not
ge ing your Twi er fix directly from the
little blue bird itself, then the company
has a significantly harder time putting
advertising in front of you. The irony
is, recent attempts to solve the money
problem seem to have opened the door to
the kind of existential challenge Caldwell
has issued—and may even spell the end
of Twi er’s reign as one of theworld’s best
and busiest social media sites.
It started in August, when Twitter
announced sweeping changes to theways
that outside developers are able to interact
with the site. AnyoneworkingwithTwi er
must abide by these rules, or risk having
the plug pulled on their app. Under the
new rules, outsiders who have previously
worked with Twitter—in developing a
smartphone app, say—will have their
growth capped at 200 percent of their current user base (meaning
that anappwith 1millionuserswill be cut offat 2million), unless they
get permission from Twi er to add more. New apps will be capped
at 100,000 users. It’s hard to imagine a developer pouring heart and
soul into a product if there’s suddenly a limit on how successful it’s
allowed to be.
For people who use Twi er, these rules could lead to a generation
of cool apps passing them by. Marco Arment, who developed the
brilliant archiving service Instapaper, has said he’ll have to rewrite
his app to comply—or simply remove it. Flipboard, a hugely success-
ful app that allows users to create personalized “magazines” from
traditional and social media sources, could be hobbled by a rule that
prohibitsmixing Twi er and non-Twi er content. And these are just
two possible casualties
of the new regime.
We should note here
that Twitter execs are
completely within their
rights to take these steps.
It’s their service, their
infrastructure and their
user base. And Twit-
ter’s policy changes are
another hard reminder
that if you develop for
any closed ecosystem—
whether it’s the Apple
App Store, Facebook or
Twi er—you operate at
the mercy of the com-
pany that controls it. We should also note that Twi er’s new rules
are hardly the harshest in the tech world.
But while you can sympathize with Twi er’s need tomonetize its
service, you have towonder what thismight mean for the vitality of
the site itself. For many users, Twi er became interesting precisely
because of its flexibility, itswillingness to experiment. Sure, it’s nowa
mainstreamphenomenon, withTVshows pu inghashtags onscreen
and Lady Gaga drawing some 30 million followers, yet that sort of
mass appeal wouldn’t have been possiblewithout the first hard-core
users who helped shape Twi er, and the thousands of developers
who found cool ways to interact with it.
App.net’s Caldwell is banking on those über-geeks jumping ship,
and he may be onto something. Not only did App.net surpass its
fundraising goal by more than $250,000, but within 60 days of
launching it boasted 20,000 paid users and counting. If this kind of
subscription model catches on, and if developers give up on doing
innovative things using Twi er, it could mean that the best days of
this revolutionary service are behind us.
#
ihopeimwrong
MARK MCCLUSKY
is the special projects editor for
Wired
magazine.
Follow him on Twitter at @markmcc ... for now.
DECEMBER CROSSWORD ANSWERS
BRIGHT IDEAS
||
TECH
A democratic-
to-a-fault approach
is the bedrock of
Twi er’s success.
But it has come
with a significant
drawback:
There isn’t enough
money in it.
