A couple of weeks ago, twitter made a controversial statement to its developers:
Stop making third party clients.
Analytics tools or apps like HootSuite and Seesmic are fine, but anything that is a duplication of twitter’s desktop or mobile app is a “no-no”.
My first thought was “Wow, who do they think they are? Facebook? I mean, with 600 million users, Facebook can get away with that kind of thing….but twitter?”
Well, as it turns out, with 100 million users, twitter rules their own roost too. Sure, a few developers threatened to build a competitive platform. But we know it won’t work. Most of us have all we can deal with with just the regular twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles to manage. Not to mention, trying to convince all your friends to drop twitter for another service would make you sound like some sort of MLM hawk with the “next greatest product”.
Which brings me to my question: How much leverage do you have? It was a little risky for them sure, but they knew they had reached critical mass and could get away with it. Still, was it right? Should they have?
Just because you can, does it mean you should?
An even bigger question is, “You only have so much leverage, is what you’re doing right now how you want to use it?”
Go ahead and answer. We’re curious.
(ps, “Yes” is a perfectly acceptable answer if it’s the truth.)
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