It looks like Twitter won't be happy until the only Twitter developers are the ones that work at Twitter.

To play a bit of Devil's advocate... Most of the popular apps fall under the free API access, don't they? If so, isn't it unfair for everyone to say how users need to jump ship and find an alternative? I mean, Twitter is giving you API access for one of the most utilized services on the Internet... for free. You just have to make sure your app follows some guidelines.

Unless I've misinterpreted this?

People aren't building apps for fun. They're trying to build a business. No one in their right mind is going to invest in a business that's built in an area that can be bulldozed at any moment, and that's what twitter's platform is.

For developers, twitter is now officially a burning platform.

That's true of any API, though. You don't build your entire business around another company's API without a contract.

And yes, people are building apps for fun. Programming isn't just a job.

Can you imagine if any other content provider or medium had this restriction? Or even worse, imagine how Twitter's growth would not have occured if the developers were intially subject to these restrictions...

Craig's List comes to mind. They're doing fine.

Twitter seems to be taking themselves too seriously. Guidelines for displaying a tweet? Come on.

This essentially boils down to "any content sourced from the api must be displayed unmodified, in its entirety, and be properly attributed." It's a pretty standard thing across the entire internet. really, the only strange thing is the insistence that the author's username must be on a separate line from the tweet.

It's a great way to restrict clients that integrate with other services, especially competitors like Facebook.

How are they expecting to enforce that? Are they really going to download and test every third-party app?

Reviewing the most popular X apps is easy. Apps that no one uses don't matter.

Require screenshot submissions, hire a bunch of temps, and they're all set.

... or use their recently open-sourced mechanical turk library.

It certainly is time for an alternative, isn't it.

Hence Dalton Caldwell's "Audacious Proposal" and the birth of App.net.

https://join.app.net/

So we have a walled garden network fucking over its users, and you think the solution is to replace it with another walled garden because its rulers are supposedly more benevolent? That's not very ambitious. Think bigger. StatusNet/Identica is free, open source, and (most importantly) federated.

I have wondered if an updated version of nntp would have worked.

A walled garden lets anyone in, but not out. You're thinking of something more along the lines of a gated community.

No, I'm thinking of a walled garden. https://www.google.com/search?q=walled+garden+twitter

Ah, appears we're both correct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walled_garden_(technology)

"... refers to a carrier or service provider's control over applications, content, and media on platforms..."

"More generally ... refers to a closed or exclusive set of information services provided for users"

No, i actually think just he's correct. It's OK to be wrong though, so no big deal.

Though I do disagree with his sentiment. I think App.Net is a perfectly good alternative to Twitter and every attempt at open, federated services since the original one (eg www) have failed to catch-on.

www was not the original federated service. E-mail is still around and quite successful.

Usenet is dead now, but worked for quite some time.

I know, I joined.

How will they handle console twitter apps (ttyter and bitlbee for example) where formatting can't happen to match their requirements?

The authors of these requirements don't seem to know or care that the World-Wide Web was never intended to mandate one visual-only rendering of your content, and in fact doesn't even do that very effectively. Most of them are pretty reasonable semantics (e.g., @user links to their profile) but as soon as you mention "lines" or "icons" or "top right" you're Doing It Wrong, and no affordances using other services is just blatantly anti-competitive.

… not to mention the issue of accessibility. Is Twitter going to block access for visually impaired users by enforcing the new rules?

Tweetie (now Twitter app) at least is a horrible app from an accessibility point of view and could only improve …

I highly doubt Twitter cares about them at all, and they'll most likely have their keys revoked.

Rat bastards. I'm sure you're right.