GigaOM Pro

I thought the return of Jack Dorsey was supposed to prevent random Twitter policy changes. But now LinkedIn can no longer act as a filtered feed for business contacts’ tweets. Twitter seems overly protective of its role as the mass-market client of choice. And what other developers are at risk? HootSuite is probably safe, as it’s rapidly evolving into the kind of professional and marketing-oriented app Twitter endorses. And Twitter hasn’t made any moves to prevent Facebook from pulling in tweets. If Twitter really wants to remain a news utility, it needs to clearly state its terms. This suggestion from Nova Spivak makes some sense: Twitter could write into its ads into its API usage TOS. The mechanics of implementation – without stripping ad targeting out – would be complex. But Twitter needs to have this kind of a discussion with developers.