Yesterday I wrote a post about Twitter's developer roadmap. Full of potholes, detours, Do Not Enter signs. That's the road you're on if you're a corporate blogging silo. They made the choice to go in that direction a few years ago. This moment was inevitable the day they made it. And it doesn't make them bad people, or stupid, as some people say. It's a valid choice. Don't be so sure you wouldn't make it if you were in their place. However: There was something unfair and dishonest about Twitter's new roadmap. They say client developers "mimic or reproduce" Twitter's functionality, as if they led the way and the developer guys came along later, trying to steal their thunder. It's actually the other way around. In a comment under that piece, a developer from Feedly asks, basically, for my roadmap. I posted a pointer to my linkblog feed. http://static.reallysimple.org/users/dave/linkblog.xml That's the center of my universe. It's still developing, I want to add some more stuff to the namespace, but it works. That feed contains the stuff I link to on Twitter, thanks to the help of TwitterFeed. They are my friends because their software works with my software, so I don't have to write a gateway to Twitter. They take care of that for me. Had lunch last week with Aditya, the developer and CEO of TwitterFeed. Nice guy. Lives in NYC! 1. Develop stuff that consumes feeds like that, and I'm happy. 2. Develop stuff that manages feeds like that, and I'm happy. 3. Develop tools that help users of #1 and #2 and I'm happy. See it's easy to make me happy. I'm already happy, having a lot of fun, building software around that format. If I were running a company that took on tens of millions in venture capital I'd have to tell you to go away. But I haven't, so I don't. I'm like Tom Sawyer with the whitewash fence. I'm having the time of my life. But yeah, if you insist, I'll share. BTW, to the people who say that, in order to use something other than Twitter, you have to leave Twitter -- that clearly is not true. So far the Twitter guys think it's okay for me to post to their network via my tool. However if they want to shut me down, please, do me a favor. I'm addicted to Twitter. Guys like me could use a little tough love. PS: For a tour of the architecture, please read the stories linked to here. |