For some time Twitter has made it easy for outside deleveopers to build some 70,000 apps which has basically made the microblogging space more usable resulting in Twitter growing extremely fast with users now writing some 50 million Tweets a day reports an article over on the nytimes.
The outside devs did everything for free due to Twitter allowing them to make cash via advertisers and Twitter users who were willing to pay for the apps. The developers will be coming together at Chirp this week in San Francisco which is Twitter’s inaugural developer conference, and the devs feel life is starting to get complicated.
Apparently there is some serious tension due to it being expected that Twitter will announce ways it will make revenue and word has it this may include paid accounts for business or advertising.
Developers are concerned that if Twitter engineers develop the same features found in applications developers already offer, Twitter could well transform overnight from a “generous benefactor” to an arch competitor to their start-ups.
As Twitter matures and develops the resources and desire to build or buy their own version of some of the outside applications, tension is building. Twitter has already announced the acquisition of Tweetie for iPhone and Mac and they have worked with RIM on a BlackBerry application.
This has cause concern with other start-ups which make mobile Twitter apps and they are wondering if there is any room left for them.
Twitter co-founder and chief exec, Evan Williams stated in an interview… “When we launched, Twitter was incomplete, so developers rushed to fill those holes, but eventually we’re going to have to build a lot of features in because they should be there. We want to set those expectations.”