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Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

tapbots.com

21–30 of 53 posts

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#21
post #8

Twitter are gambling that they are now powerful enough to say "No more 3rd party clients", and thus start streaming ads down peoples throats (oh, sorry - "Richer stories" is apparently the nuspeak). I'm not sure they're yet in a position to dictate this, especially given how bad their own clients are compared to some other options. The interesting thing about Twitter compared to e.g. Facebook is that the social graph…

"Twitter are gambling that they are now powerful enough to say "No more 3rd party clients" Isn't it more: No more free data for 3rd party clients? (past a certain amount) Companies can still buy unlimited realtime data through twitter's monitization child DataSift. Meaning the death of free 3rd party apps. Maybe now that they have to charge a good chunk we will get better 3rd party apps?

I haven't really looked at it, but I don't think DataSift is intended for twitter clients to use.

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#22

Twitter are gambling that they are now powerful enough to say "No more 3rd party clients", and thus start streaming ads down peoples throats (oh, sorry - "Richer stories" is apparently the nuspeak). I'm not sure they're yet in a position to dictate this, especially given how bad their own clients are compared to some other options. The interesting thing about Twitter compared to e.g. Facebook is that the social graph…

I just really don't get it.

If the problem is that they can't figure out how to monetize third party apps, the answer is staring them right in the face.

So, Twitter is already going to dictate what the tweet view looks like. In-stream ads won't be much more than tweets. So why not stipulate that an app MUST show in-stream ads in a given format? If the app wishes to not show ads or to use twitter for more of an "infrastructure-like" purpose, then there should be some kind of use-fee-based pricing model on the API side. Sure, people might bitch about the high API costs, but it's better than nothing.

Or maybe that was their plan all along: throw out these API changes threatening to cut everyone completely off, then eventually "concede" with new ad-supported and use-fee API rules and have everyone applaud them for "listening to their customers".

You'll have to forgive me for being more cynical than normal... but with this twitter stuff lately it just seems like we've all entered into the Twilight Zone of Suck.

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#23
post #21
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Twitter are gambling that they are now powerful enough to say "No more 3rd party clients" Isn't it more: No more free data for 3rd party clients? (past a certain amount) Companies can still buy unlimited realtime data through twitter's monitization child DataSift. Meaning the death of free 3rd party apps. Maybe now that they have to charge a good chunk we will get better 3rd party apps?

I haven't really looked at it, but I don't think DataSift is intended for twitter clients to use.

Not certain about DataSift, but we used Gnip and part of the terms was you couldn't display tweets to your users directly off the firehose. I'd imagine DataSift has a similar restriction.

Besides that; neither give you access to private tweets or DMs, so you pretty much have to use the API for a client of any worth.

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#24

A possible solution might be, since they are selling the application and not providing a service, is for users of the software to create their own application tokens and putting them into a new settings panel. There's no loss in sales, it does require an extra couple of steps for a user to get going but putting something like this in the advanced section or releasing it with just the Alpha might be very good solution…

I imagine Twitter's reaction to a major client doing such a thing would be less than favorable to developers (no more free API keys, if I had to guess)

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#25

Love Tweetbot, but why can't they just register a separate application token/secret for the alpha and change it when it goes gold? Just because it wouldn't generate any media attention or am I missing something?

If they went that route, they would be limited to 100,000 users. Tapbots likely had more users than that when the new API guidelines were announced, which means that they can have two times their current userbase, a (potentially) significantly higher number, if they keep the same key and secret as for the alpha.

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#26
post #8

Twitter are gambling that they are now powerful enough to say "No more 3rd party clients", and thus start streaming ads down peoples throats (oh, sorry - "Richer stories" is apparently the nuspeak). I'm not sure they're yet in a position to dictate this, especially given how bad their own clients are compared to some other options. The interesting thing about Twitter compared to e.g. Facebook is that the social graph…

"Twitter are gambling that they are now powerful enough to say "No more 3rd party clients" Isn't it more: No more free data for 3rd party clients? (past a certain amount) Companies can still buy unlimited realtime data through twitter's monitization child DataSift. Meaning the death of free 3rd party apps. Maybe now that they have to charge a good chunk we will get better 3rd party apps?

Are Twitter and DataSift linked in any way in terms of their company ownership etc?

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#27
post #12
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not ideal, they could register a new Twitter app for the released, for sale version of Tweetbot. Everyone would have to reconnect to that app (just as they originally had to do on the beta), but it should get around the issue as the new app would have zero used tokens.

Is that allowed? I figured all the TapBots apps were tied together somehow within Twitter (like separate apps on the same account) and Twitter would enforce that on new apps (since the limits would be meaningless otherwise).

A Twitter account can have a large number of apps so TapBots would jut have to rename the old one and create a new app for the release.

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#28
post #8

Twitter are gambling that they are now powerful enough to say "No more 3rd party clients", and thus start streaming ads down peoples throats (oh, sorry - "Richer stories" is apparently the nuspeak). I'm not sure they're yet in a position to dictate this, especially given how bad their own clients are compared to some other options. The interesting thing about Twitter compared to e.g. Facebook is that the social graph…

"Twitter are gambling that they are now powerful enough to say "No more 3rd party clients" Isn't it more: No more free data for 3rd party clients? (past a certain amount) Companies can still buy unlimited realtime data through twitter's monitization child DataSift. Meaning the death of free 3rd party apps. Maybe now that they have to charge a good chunk we will get better 3rd party apps?

Did you miss when Twitter explicitly told developers not to make any more third-party Twitter clients? The situation is simple, and just as the comment you replied to states.

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#29

Love Tweetbot, but why can't they just register a separate application token/secret for the alpha and change it when it goes gold? Just because it wouldn't generate any media attention or am I missing something?

If they went that route, they would be limited to 100,000 users. Tapbots likely had more users than that when the new API guidelines were announced, which means that they can have two times their current userbase, a (potentially) significantly higher number, if they keep the same key and secret as for the alpha.

So they have a "limited" beta with the first 10k new test users for each release getting to test it (and once in, you are always in). That would give them 10 testing updates before they hit their cap and a lot of useful data.

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#30

Twitter are gambling that they are now powerful enough to say "No more 3rd party clients", and thus start streaming ads down peoples throats (oh, sorry - "Richer stories" is apparently the nuspeak). I'm not sure they're yet in a position to dictate this, especially given how bad their own clients are compared to some other options. The interesting thing about Twitter compared to e.g. Facebook is that the social graph…

I just really don't get it. If the problem is that they can't figure out how to monetize third party apps, the answer is staring them right in the face. So, Twitter is already going to dictate what the tweet view looks like. In-stream ads won't be much more than tweets. So why not stipulate that an app MUST show in-stream ads in a given format? If the app wishes to not show ads or to use twitter for more of an "infra…

You're proposing 2 competing business models. Ads are devalued if some users can opt-out of them.
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