The End of the 140 Character Tweet and its Repercussions

A note from the Editor: After a too-long haitus, Twitip is back. We’ve got some great posts lined up, and we’re always looking for more. This post by Neal Wiser is the kickoff post to our return to a regular posting schedule. Thank you to all who have stayed with us! – Lara

A few weeks ago, Iain Dodsworth, founder and CEO of TweetDeck, introduced Deck.ly, a new component to TweetDeck that allows users to send tweets greater than 140 characters in length. While exceeding the 140 character limit is controversial to some Twitter purists, other services, such as TwitLonger, do the same. But what makes the Deck.ly move different is that it gives Dodsworth, whose TweetDeck has millions of users, the potential to free TweetDeck from its dependence on Twitter.
Or does it?

On the heels of the Deck.ly announcement, TweetDeck was acquired by UberMedia who already owns several other Twitter apps. Yet almost as soon as UberMedia announced the TweetDeck acquisition, Twitter fired a warning shot across UberMedia’s bow by cutting off access to UberMedia’s Echofon, UberTwitter, Twidroyd and UberCurrent apps for alleged policy violations.

TweetDeck, which is highly, but not wholly dependent upon Twitter (it also allows users to connect to other social networks such as Facebook and Linkedin), continued to operate normally during the shutdown.

Perhaps it’s because with the TweetDeck acquisition UberMedia now controls an estimated 20% of the world’s daily tweets and TweetDeck represents the vast majority of that traffic. Any wholesale shutdown of UberMedia that includes TweetDeck would be extremely damaging to Twitter. Conversely, the vast majority of TweetDeck’s traffic goes to Twitter. Clearly, ending the Twitter/TweetDeck relationship, at least for now, would be something close to Mutual Assured Destruction.
The Shot Heard Around the World

Schoolhouse Rock

As I stated in my post Twitter Commits Suicide (or Twipocalypse Now: Redux), third party developers who don’t expand their services beyond Twitter are at serious risk. If Twitter’s move to cut off access to UberMedia’s apps isn’t convincing enough, the previous week Twitter announced that it’s no longer going to “white label” access to its API effectively choking off other app’s access. It’s sad to say, but it looks like the Twitter ecosystem’s days, in its present form, may be numbered.

To be sure, many developers are trying to expand their business models beyond Twitter, but only TweetDeck and Seesmic have any hope of success due to the sizes of their user bases (listen to my interview with Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur where we discussed Twitter dependency). Ironically, Deck.ly actually offers Twitter its biggest opportunity to make dramatic, and perhaps necessary, changes to its platform.

While the 140 character limit has been in place since Twitter’s launch, many users have felt constrained by that limit. Others hold the limits in near reverence and consider it an integral part of what makes Twitter Twitter. Yet this may be Twitter’s big opportunity to break free of that albatross. With its new funding and new leadership, this could be Twitter’s chance to innovate and do something truly bold.
Only Nixon Could go to China

For years, Twitter has depended upon its ecosystem of third-party developers for innovation. The results have been some fantastic tools and services that have added significant value to the overall Twitter experience. Creating an environment to allow this to happen was a brilliant move on behalf of Twitter’s creators. Unfortunately, Twitter’s behavior towards their developers over the past year has been less than encouraging (again, see Twitter Commits Suicide (or Twipocalypse Now: Redux).

The problem is that Twitter thinks it needs to drive traffic to twitter.com to make their advertising products pay off. But the reality is that, in its present form, Twitter is so feature poor and so much traffic access twitter through other means (via those third-party apps) that continuing to develop twitter.com, and alienating those third-party developers in the process, is both a distraction and foolish.



Where Nixon went to China, Twitter should focus on continuing to develop itself as a platform, not as a destination. As a platform, Twitter could finally stabilize itself and put an end to the notorious Fail Whale (who showed its blowhole again just this past week).

Twitter could then figure out how to actually make money while simultaneously prompting continued innovation by its third-party developers and perhaps even invigorating them by allowing them to share in revenue that could come through those apps.

As Jeff Pester correctly stated, “Twitter is an information utility – it’s admitted as much on several occasions. It should start acting and pricing its product like one.”
What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Neal Wiser is Vice President of Digital Strategy and Operations at The ODM Group where he leads teams in the creation and execution of digital marketing campaigns. You can follow Neal on Twitter (his handle is @NealWiser). Neal is also the Cofounder and Co-host of the Addicted to Social Media podcast.

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