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0 pointsjad13y ago0 comments

> 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.

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MatthewPhillips13y ago

> 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.

natrius13y ago

"Facebook, wisely, never relinquished control over their platform."

What did Facebook do differently? Third-party Facebook clients have been possible for quite some time, perhaps from the initial launching of their API.

gurkendoktor13y ago

I've tried various Facebook iPad apps and they all sucked. I think it's simply that Facebook has so many features and changes at such a rapid rate that it becomes unfeasible to write an app for it. Compare that to the wealth of Twitter- and RSS clients and weather apps. They're all gorgeous front ends around conceptually simple data.

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