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Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

tapbots.com

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Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#31

Post by MatthewPhillips »

abraham wrote: post #27
smackfu wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> We’ve been working with Twitter over the last few days to try to work around this limit for the duration of the beta but have been unable to come up with a solution that was acceptable to them.

That tells me that they've already tried the obvious stuff people are suggesting in this thread and Twitter simply won't allow them.

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#32

Post by breckinloggins »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #30
breckinloggins wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Understood, but I'm wondering if there's a compromise somewhere.

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#33

Post by troethom »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #30
breckinloggins wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it could work. The set of users who would pay is a completely different demographic than those who are following Justin Bieber. You're only devaluing the market for the adverts that would appeal to everyone.

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#34

Post by jad »

breckinloggins wrote: post #22
archgrove wrote: post #4

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…

> 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.

No need for this complexity. They could just revoke API access for apps that don't show ads per their guidelines. It'd be easy to catch any Twitter client with a significant user base that isn't showing ads properly.

At the end of the day though solutions like this just aren't realistic. If Twitter's going to show ads and other content like cards in their stream, advertisers have to have confidence that the content and presentation will be preserved. The only way to truly do this effectively is to control how your product is presented in all cases.

The problem isn't that Twitter's making these changes. The problem is that Twitter's only getting around to doing this now, years after a vibrant ecosystem of third-party clients has been well established. No one complains that there isn't a rich market for third-party Facebook clients, even though the Facebook app historically has been pretty substandard. Facebook, wisely, never relinquished control over their platform.

Twitter, as ever, is cleaning up for previous incompetence, trying to clean up a mess that never should have existed. How could they not have assigned one or two people to build an iPhone client the minute the iPhone SDK was announced in 2008? How blind do you have to be to not anticipate that mobile will be huge for Twitter, a service originally engineered around being used over SMS?

Watching Twitter bungle issue after issue over the years gives the distinct impression that Twitter is successful in spite of their executive management, not because of it.

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#35

Post by nathanhammond »

The future of unofficial Twitter clients might just be fully open-source code. Twitter can't stop every determined individual from creating their own application if the code is out there publicly. And with Twitter possibly cutting people off I wouldn't be surprised to see some clients become open source as they hit their cap. The question simply becomes how high the bar becomes for building your own personal Twitter application.

Actually, that would be a rather scary end-game for Twitter: completely losing control of their delivery platform.

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#36

Post by MatthewPhillips »

troethom wrote: post #33
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think it could work. The set of users who would pay is a completely different demographic than those who are following Justin Bieber. You're only devaluing the market for the adverts that would appeal to everyone.

Aren't "users who will pay" the most desirable demographic for marketing to?

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#37

Post by riobard »

nathanhammond wrote: post #35

The future of unofficial Twitter clients might just be fully open-source code. Twitter can't stop every determined individual from creating their own application if the code is out there publicly. And with Twitter possibly cutting people off I wouldn't be surprised to see some clients become open source as they hit their cap. The question simply becomes how high the bar becomes for building your own personal Twitter…

Why would 3rd party Twitter client developers want to open-source their apps? Just to hurt Twitter at their own financial cost?

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#38

Post by graue »

kalms wrote: post #10

I'm getting really tired of this. Anybody looked into tent.io? That looks promising!

Also http://rstat.us, which I just found out about - not sure why it hasn't received more attention. It seems to be like a better identi.ca that can also automatically syndicate your Twitter posts. http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2011-03-23-announcing-rst...

Edit: They're also planning to create a Twitter-compatible API, so a vendor like Tapbots could simply change the endpoint in their code and support rstat.us as well. https://github.com/hotsh/rstat.us/issues/562

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#39

Post by MatthewPhillips »

jad wrote: post #34
breckinloggins wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. No need for this complexity. They could just revoke API access for apps that don't show ads per their guidelines. It'd be easy to catch any Twitter client with a significant user base that isn't showing ads properly. At the end of the day th…

> The problem is that solutions like this aren't realistic. If Twitter's going to show ads and other content like cards in their stream, advertisers have to have confidence that the content and presentation will be preserved. The only way to truly do this effectively is to control how your product is presented in all cases.

Thank you. It amazes me how people miss this. Look at it from the perspective of Twitter's customers (advertisers). Would you buy an ad without seeing exactly what it looks like, or without knowing with certainty that what they show you is what winds up in front of the users eyeballs? Having worked in advertising, companies pay attention to every last detail of an ad piece. This is the exact reason why Twitter has gone this way. That have to sell themselves to companies as trustworthy partner.

Re: Where did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha go?

#40

Post by kristianc »

riobard wrote: post #37
nathanhammond wrote: post #35

The future of unofficial Twitter clients might just be fully open-source code. Twitter can't stop every determined individual from creating their own application if the code is out there publicly. And with Twitter possibly cutting people off I wouldn't be surprised to see some clients become open source as they hit their cap. The question simply becomes how high the bar becomes for building your own personal Twitter…

Why would 3rd party Twitter client developers want to open-source their apps? Just to hurt Twitter at their own financial cost?

Developers might arrive at a point where there is no financial incentive in maintaining a 3rd party Twitter app anyway.
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