It's even worse than it appears..
Thursday January 19, 2023; 9:05 PM EST
Twitter's developer program#
  • I've seen recent editorials about Twitter's developer program. #
  • It wasn't great. The first time I ever spoke with a person from Twitter who worked with developers was in spring 2022.#
  • I have been developing for the platform since 2006.#
  • Most of what they developed for developers wasn't what we needed. It was what they thought of based on not having much contact with actual devs.#
  • What we needed more than anything was a way to be validated by the platform and promoted to users. #
  • See also: evangelism.#
  • 1994: "Apple should stop looking inward for the answer. Do your software shopping in the developer world. You get there sooner and it costs less."#
  • Users never heard about our products and struggled with limits in Twitter that our products overcame. #
  • Eventually I realized there was no point pouring effort into the platform because users would never hear about it.#
  • Twitter except at the very beginning had almost zero entrepreneurialism in its dna.#
  • Evan Williams et al did a great job of promoting it at first via SXSW. They had some kind of exclusive marketing deal with them. And then momentum carried the service, not innovation or creativity. #
  • Then, with no where to go, Elon Musk bailed them out. #
  • PS: I was a very small shareholder and was bought out by Musk. I didn't want to sell. I wanted Twitter to get with it. #

© copyright 1994-2023 Dave Winer.

Last update: Thursday January 19, 2023; 9:38 PM EST.

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