Open the Twitter API

Twitter has been in the tech news a lot lately. They have a temporary CEO, Wall Street isn’t happy with their performance — I’d argue Wall Street is its own problem — and they still don’t allow developers to create the applications they’d really like to create.

Of those problems I believe the one that needs solving first is the developer issue. It’s the easiest to fix and it would allow Twitter to focus on figuring out what the heart and soul of Twitter really is; is it a marketing site, a place to follow the rich and famous, or a real time communication technology?

Opening up the API would allow the developer community to solve problems Twitter isn’t willing to solve. We all know mobile is king, so they need good mobile applications, but developer are also willing to create unique desktop applications. E.G. Under Twitter the Mac client has languished as well as third-party client Twitterrific. In the case of Twitterrific it is because of Twitter’s draconian limits of 100,000 tokens per application. If Twitter would remove these restrictions they would allow thousands of digital flowers to bloom.

I’m not Kim Kardashian, so this request will definitely fall on deaf ears, but please, Jack, open up the Twitter API.