The New York Times reports that it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
Twitter made it easy for programmers outside the company to build 70,000 applications that made the microblogging service more usable. Without them, people would not be able to post a photo, shorten a URL, monitor several Twitter accounts at once, easily use the service from a cellphone or search for people to follow.
Because of that, Twitter grew so fast that no me-too company could mount a serious challenge. People now write 50 million Twitter posts a day, up from just 2.5 million at the beginning of last year and 5,000 in 2007.
The outside developers did it all at no charge because Twitter allowed them to make money from advertisers or Twitter users willing to pay for apps.
Developers fear that if Twitter’s engineers build the same features that they have, Twitter could transform overnight from generous benefactor to arch competitor to their start-ups.
The tension is becoming more acute as Twitter matures and develops the resources and desire to buy or build its own version of some of the outside apps.
Twitter announced that it had acquired Atebits, which makes Tweetie for the iPhone and Mac, and that it had worked with Research In Motion to build an official BlackBerry app. That has other start-ups that make mobile Twitter apps wondering if there is any room left for them.
Photo by stuffjournalistslike.