Twitter continues to tighten its noose around third party developers, with the micro-blogging website now deciding to remove the tag that identifies which app a tweet has come from. The move will hide the branding of apps such as Hootsuite, Tweetbot, Ecofon and a host of other third-party Twitter clients used to tweet to the Twitter stream.
It’s notable that the change has already been implemented in Twitter’s mobile applications. “This is part of our ongoing work to simplify Tweets and emphasize the content being shared,” a Twitter spokesperson is quoted by CNET as saying.
Twitter recently announced changes to its Application Programming Interface (API) v1.1 that had stricter rules for the third party developers. Among the top API changes includes the restriction of 100,000 users. If a developer is already at the limit, Twitter allows them to double the numbers but not after that. Now developers need authentication from Twitter before having access to the API.
The new API rules have been severely criticized by the developers. “I sure as hell wouldn’t build a business on Twitter, and I don’t think I’ll even build any nontrivial features on it anymore,” said Marco Arment, a developer who created Instapaper. “And if I were in the Twitter-client business, I’d start working on another product.”
It’s learnt that Tweetbot, another popular Twitter app, decided to shut down its alpha version testing due to new stricter rules. Developers of Tweetbot in a post revealed that the company had been “unable to come up with a solution that was acceptable” to Twitter.
Source: CNET
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