A few weeks ago, we featured news that Twitter would soon be locking it’s API to all third party developers, effectively putting a cap on the number of users that could be a part of that experience, thus effectively shutting down the growth of apps and services like Hootsuite, Tweetbot, Favstar, and many more. Now, today brings us news that Twitter is also planning on dumping it’s third party image hosts as well, a move that does not bode well for the companies who host those images, and a move that doesn’t seem to boost Twitter’s sagging image among those already put out by the earlier round of API lockouts.
The changes will allegedly roll out in the next round of updates, knocking out popular hosting services like twitpic and yfrog, which for some people are the silent backbone of twitter that they probably didn’t know existed. Third party providers have been contacted, and Twitter claims that all users will be able to view currently posted pictures “indefinietely”, but doesn’t this just seem like yet another move in making sure that they only way anyone accesses Twitter is through, well, Twitter itself? This quote from Twitpic found Noah Everett is pretty telling:
“They’re trying to control those eyeballs on their apps; they’re an ad-based company, they make money that way.”
Indeed. They make money that way. As Twitter grows larger; which it still is, by leaps and bounds, I am afraid that the service will give way to more ad placement, more “promoted” tweets, and possibly even on page or in app ads. This is all in the name of making Twitter more money.
Also, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo was live on NBC’s Today show today to introduce a new look for profile pages, as well as updated iOS and Android Twitter apps. These changes may not be all that far off, friends.
How do you feel about this? Is Twitter doing the right thing by locking out third party apps and image hosts, or are they just being greedy? Sound off in our comments section below!
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