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Twitter Just Shut Down Ribbon’s Newly Launched In-Stream Payments Feature

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Re: Twitter Just Shut Down Ribbon’s Newly Launched In-Stream Payments Feature

#21

Post by ceeK »

Twitter really haven't been doing themselves any favours within the developer community. If not for the constant news we hear of APIs being restricted or cut off completely, it's now the in-stream features as well. Why would any developer now want to work with them?

I just don't....get Twitter at the moment. It'd be nice to have some clarification of why they wish to pursue this draconian mindset, but that's asking too much. I'm surprised that services such as Buffer have came so far.

Re: Twitter Just Shut Down Ribbon’s Newly Launched In-Stream Payments Feature

#22

Post by SoftwareMaven »

josh2600 wrote: post #4

Are you surprised? Why don't we all go back to AOL and Geocities. The problem with Twitter is that it is not clear exactly what their approach to their revenue problem might be. I understand they want to monetize their API but does that go hand-in-hand with quashing every potential competitor who happens to use the API with a modicum of success? I'm bearish about any company that builds a data warehouse on the basis…

I wouldn't touch Twitter without a contract signed by my company and by Twitter. Any attempt to utilize their content consumers for anything other than reading content you produce has been shown to be at extreme risk of termination.

I don't believe Twitter doesn't know how they are going to generate revenue. I'm not convinced they can actually implement their ideas, but, if they had no ideas, I think they would be letting other companies throw themselves at the wall, then picking off the ones that stick via acquisitions. That they just squash them implies they think they know what they are doing.

Re: Twitter Just Shut Down Ribbon’s Newly Launched In-Stream Payments Feature

#23

Post by jmount »

arindone wrote: post #16
josh2600 wrote: post #4

Are you surprised? Why don't we all go back to AOL and Geocities. The problem with Twitter is that it is not clear exactly what their approach to their revenue problem might be. I understand they want to monetize their API but does that go hand-in-hand with quashing every potential competitor who happens to use the API with a modicum of success? I'm bearish about any company that builds a data warehouse on the basis…

But that's just hearsay and conjecture -- we don't know it was turned off for "profitability" reasons or whatever. In fact Ribbon's blog indicates that Twitter was very receptive to the idea: http://blog.ribbon.co/an-update-on-in-stream-payments-on-twi... Further, we haven't heard Twitter's side to this -- was there a violation of the TOS that the Tech bloggers didn't catch (or bother finding the other side of the st…

We have heard Twitter's side: they turned off the service.

Re: Twitter Just Shut Down Ribbon’s Newly Launched In-Stream Payments Feature

#24

Post by joshstrange »

arindone wrote: post #16
josh2600 wrote: post #4

Are you surprised? Why don't we all go back to AOL and Geocities. The problem with Twitter is that it is not clear exactly what their approach to their revenue problem might be. I understand they want to monetize their API but does that go hand-in-hand with quashing every potential competitor who happens to use the API with a modicum of success? I'm bearish about any company that builds a data warehouse on the basis…

But that's just hearsay and conjecture -- we don't know it was turned off for "profitability" reasons or whatever. In fact Ribbon's blog indicates that Twitter was very receptive to the idea: http://blog.ribbon.co/an-update-on-in-stream-payments-on-twi... Further, we haven't heard Twitter's side to this -- was there a violation of the TOS that the Tech bloggers didn't catch (or bother finding the other side of the st…

> Essentially you're jumping the gun in saying that Twitter is two-faced ("They say they're open but they're really not") all based upon no data or concrete evidence.

Yes because I can't think of any other examples where Twitter has screwed developers.... Oh wait....

Yes, there might be a TOS issue here (and maybe even a valid one) but their track record makes it pretty clear that they just don't give a shit about developers.

Re: Twitter Just Shut Down Ribbon’s Newly Launched In-Stream Payments Feature

#25

Post by mootothemax »

sujal wrote: post #18
evan_ wrote: post #9

Here's the post about this on Ribbon's blog: http://blog.ribbon.co/an-update-on-in-stream-payments-on-twi...

The preview doesn't look anything like their final implementation. That preview looks like an actual movie player, while the final card screenshots I've seen look like regular content cards with a lot of custom branding. This looks like a clever hack of the Twitter implementation of the Player card and not the intended use. The stream and content type attributes both are empty, for example. Does anyone know if this s…

Sadly, I think you might be right - perhaps Ribbon showed one system, and deployed another.

I say "sadly," as if this is the case, Ribbon have just made every other developer's life that bit more difficult.

I really hope they haven't been that underhand, though.

Re: Twitter Just Shut Down Ribbon’s Newly Launched In-Stream Payments Feature

#26

Post by kevingadd »

meritt wrote: post #20

Twitter wants to validate each domain that has a card so they can approve & exert control. They cannot control what products a ribbon customer promotes via ribbon. If I wanted to sell illegal drugs or child pornography photographs, those would show up on twitter.com & twitter apps in a nice card-like experience complete with a 'Buy Now' button. That's why they shut it down.

I don't buy your logic. Why wouldn't the same apply to Vine or Instagram?

Re: Twitter Just Shut Down Ribbon’s Newly Launched In-Stream Payments Feature

#27

Post by anu_gupta »

meritt wrote: post #20

Twitter wants to validate each domain that has a card so they can approve & exert control. They cannot control what products a ribbon customer promotes via ribbon. If I wanted to sell illegal drugs or child pornography photographs, those would show up on twitter.com & twitter apps in a nice card-like experience complete with a 'Buy Now' button. That's why they shut it down.

There are plenty of porn and drug references on Twitter already. Twitter doesn't care.

It's very clear that Twitter want to control every possible aspect of the monetisation of Twitter.

Re: Twitter Just Shut Down Ribbon’s Newly Launched In-Stream Payments Feature

#28

Post by scott_meade »

"This is clearly something that’s good for Twitter users all over the world."

I can see how it's good for sellers, but am missing how it is so clearly good for me as a buyer (which is what I assume is meant by "Twitter users all over the world"). Is it that I can spend money without learning about what I'm buying beyond what fits into 140 chars that makes it good? Do people do that?

Re: Twitter Just Shut Down Ribbon’s Newly Launched In-Stream Payments Feature

#29

Post by notatoad »

kevingadd wrote: post #26
meritt wrote: post #20

Twitter wants to validate each domain that has a card so they can approve & exert control. They cannot control what products a ribbon customer promotes via ribbon. If I wanted to sell illegal drugs or child pornography photographs, those would show up on twitter.com & twitter apps in a nice card-like experience complete with a 'Buy Now' button. That's why they shut it down.

I don't buy your logic. Why wouldn't the same apply to Vine or Instagram?

because vine is owned by twitter, and instagram doesn't have any twitter card support anymore.

Re: Twitter Just Shut Down Ribbon’s Newly Launched In-Stream Payments Feature

#30

Post by schwanksta »

sujal wrote: post #18
evan_ wrote: post #9

Here's the post about this on Ribbon's blog: http://blog.ribbon.co/an-update-on-in-stream-payments-on-twi...

The preview doesn't look anything like their final implementation. That preview looks like an actual movie player, while the final card screenshots I've seen look like regular content cards with a lot of custom branding. This looks like a clever hack of the Twitter implementation of the Player card and not the intended use. The stream and content type attributes both are empty, for example. Does anyone know if this s…

Indeed. If you look at the screenshot, it looks like they showed Twitter that they would embed a video, but if you follow the URL they're embedding, it goes to the now-banned implementation - https://ribbon.co/086f0a?twitter=true

Maybe it's just an old screenshot though. I don't know.

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