The spat that broke out today between Twitter and Idealab founder Bill Gross speaks volumes about Twitter’s own long-running failure to cash in on the success of its service. As one third-party developer told us: “Bill Gross has been saying he’s going to monetise better than Twitter and that could have upset them. He is either committing suicide or he is going to be extremely successful.”
Twitter abruptly cut off Gross’s three Twitter apps – UberTwitter, UberCurrent and twidroyd – early on Friday, claiming they breached its terms of service. Users who could no longer indulge an urge to tweet were invited to download one of the official Twitter apps instead.
That this came less than a week after news broke that Gross’s UberMedia was close to buying TweetDeck was lost on noone. A year ago, the Idealab founder ruffled Twitter’s feathers when he launched TweetUp – an advertising service for sponsored tweets – before Twitter came up with its own version of the idea. More recently, his acquisitions of Twitter clients have made him one of the biggest players in the ecosystem that has built up around the service.
Officially, Twitter’s action was provoked by relatively minor infringements, and in a statement from UberMedia some hours later the company said it had already made the necessary changes and was posting new apps that complied with the rules. Among other things that has meant scrapping the UberTwitter name and using UbserSocial instead.
But the action carried with it a reminder of Twitter’s efforts last year to exert more control, including banning rival advertising systems from its service.
“My reading is that what they want is apps that complement and help Twitter and not apps that complete directly with them,” said Loic Le Meur, chief executive of Seesmic, another popular Twitter client.
“I think it’s quite dangerous to compete directly in terms of monetising with Twitter.”
Twitter is walking a fine line. It needs entrepreneurs like Gross and Le Meur to innovate around its service – but it also still needs to find an effective way to make the sort of money that will justify its soaring valuation. Today’s skirmish looks like a sign of its growing impatience.
