Attention: developers, If your product relies heavily on Twitter and does nothing but grab users’ tweets, either change or die. That’s the message Twitter sent when they bought Tweetie last week.
Think of it as a nice way of saying “Thank you for making us popular and getting us millions in venture capitol.” NOW LEAVE!
Developers have every right to be nervous but keep in mind, it’s their product. If Twitter wants to get into third party development, they can; especially if some third-party apps are generating revenue.
But fear not developers, you can stay in game by find ways to make the Twitter experience popular. 75% of all traffic going to Twitter comes from third-party applications like Hoot Suite, Tweetdeck and Twirl. And people aren’t going to switch to the official Twitter app overnight if your product does the same thing as Tweetdeck does.
So instead of whining of how Twitter will kill us all, shut up and innovate. Whining is not going to get you anywhere. Nobody is going to feel sorry of you when your product dies, especially if you’ve done nothing but complaining.
And if your app does just that, it’s best to find a new alternative. I hear this service called foursquare is gaining ground.