When Twitter COO, Dick Costolo announced on Monday that they were making some changes to their terms of service for developers, prohibiting third-party networks from advertising in users’ streams, many in the tech industry initially reacted by saying that the move would spell the end of a number of startups who were providing exactly that service.
Twitter claims it made this move in order to preserve the quality of the user experience on the platform. But how does this announcement impact others working in the Twitter ecosystem?
Despite some of the initial doomsday reactions about how the changing TOS would impact developers, a couple of prominent companies have since come forward saying that it’s “business as usual.” Those were the exact words, in fact, that Ad.ly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh used in a blog post on the subject. And in an interview with Louis Gray, MyLikes CEO Bindu Reddy made a similar argument: her company’s service don’t violate the new TOS.
Twitter API Lead Ryan Sarver admits, the language in the new TOS is “nuanced.” But whether or not this language is clarified, it remains to be seen if this change by Twitter, coming so close on the heels of their purchase of Tweetie and release of official Twitter mobile apps, will scare off either developers or investors.
VC Mark Suster wrote on his blog today that he’s “not abandoning the ecosystem.” But Hunch co-founder Chris Dixon tweeted that he’d heard other investors saying that they would steer clear of Twitter. Whether it’s “erratic behavior” as Dixon contends or just “bad marketing” of policy changes as Suster thinks, it does seem like Twitter might have a hard time maintaining (or regaining) the trust of third-party developers.
If you’re a startup working in the Twitter ecosystem, what are your thoughts on these developments?
