Tensions Rise for Twitter Outside App Developers

by Jillian Parker

Over the past year Twitter has grown immensely. People are now writing 50 million posts a day instead of the 2.5 million they had just a year ago. The developers did not charge anything for Twitter accounts because they had advertisers and applications being bought. However, they are now starting to feel it is getting more complicated to make money. Twitter has waited a long time to decide that they are ready to create apps that will get them more money. Although, they are afraid that people have no more room for Twitter apps on their phone. When twitter was created, it was still incomplete. Overtime they have been building it up and are now finally ready to make apps outside of Twitter that people can buy. The questions is, is it too late.

A recent New York Times article, Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder and chief executive, stated: “When we launched, Twitter was incomplete, so developers rushed to fill those holes, but eventually we’re going to have to build a lot of features in because they should be there. We want to set those expectations."  Fred Wilson, the Union Square Ventures partner who invested in Twitter and serves as a director, echoed that sentiment in a blog post last week that immediately put many developers on edge. “I think the time for filling the holes in the Twitter service has come and gone,” he wrote. “Twitter really should have had all of that when it launched or it should have built those services right into the Twitter experience.”

Twitter developers always seemed to have the upper hand, and now twitter is ready to gain that title back and start making their own money. They have made it clear that they are trying to do what Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook have all done. Twitter has let developers reach into their data. Because of this the developers have been able to use twitters tools to make money off of their own apps without having to get any contracts signed from Twitter. In addition, Twitter is paying for the apps their developers are creating, by using Twitters data. “The problems we’re solving are so big that we need a lot of people working on them and we need to give them the same level of access,” said Ryan Sarver, the director of platform at Twitter.

“If developers build something Twitter wants, the company has three options — let it exist separately, create its own version, or buy the start-up, as Twitter did in 2008 with Summize, which created a Twitter search engine, and last week with Atebits”. One of the things created by their developers is Co Tweet. This allows businesses to track customers and employees conversations. A few companies such as Ford and Coca-Cola have starting paying for this service.

Twitter obviously messed up, and needs to start coming up with some of their own ideas to make money, instead of the same ideas that Facebook and Google had. They were not well prepared enough when they started sharing Twitter with the world, and now they are paying the consequences. Ways for them to make money is to come up with applications for phones that is a must have, such as blackberry messaging. It is $30 a month, but everyone wants it badly enough to pay for it, which is the idea.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/technology/12twitter.html?pagewanted=1&ref=technology