Matthew Panzarino on Twitter’s New Guidelines

Matthew Panzarino:

That means that no third-party client can ever have more than 100k users, unless given special permission by Twitter or it already has over 100k right now, in which case it can have double that amount.

This move puts a life span on most for-pay clients, as they’ll reach a point where there is no longer any reason for them to continue offering these apps for sale. Let’s call it Max Reach . If you’re a user of a favorite third-party client already, you’re in, but those who wish to get in on one in the future will need to get cracking if they want to get in under the cap. […]

Basically, Twitter just told all developers exactly how much money they can ever make selling a for-pay client. The future of Twitter is its official apps.

And it’s a huge discouragement for starting any new Twitter clients. Regarding Twitter’s new “Display Guidelines”, Panzarino flags the same rule that caught my eye:

Section 3b. is also an interesting one, as it says that “no other social or 3rd party actions may be attached to a Tweet”. This appears to indicate that actions like “send to Instapaper” or “view in Favstar” are outlawed, but that’s unclear still.

★ Thursday, 16 August 2012