As you may already know, several Twitter 3rd party clients were suspended today due to what Twitter noted as being a violation of their ground rules. The list of suspended clients appears to be larger than Twitter’s original list of bans, including also Echofon, another 3rd party Twitter app for mobile. One of the notes that appears to be official on this matter brought to us by Techcrunch says that a Twitter official has told them that UberMedia broke privacy and trademark infringement rules in order to further monetize their platforms.
It appears that only UberMedia’s apps UberTwitter and twidroyd were singled out for announcement due to the gigantic amount of people who use these services on the daily. One question that keeps popping up on the streets is why this announcement appears to have been made so soon after Twitter announced a big update to their own official Twitter App had been updated to 2.0 (a lovely update if I do say so myself.)
UberMedia has now responded to these claims on two fronts, both of them via Twitter, one for twidroyd and the other for UberTwitter, both of them saying they’ve made new versions of their app to work with Twitter to make them Twitter legal again. The only reason Twitter has any jurisdiction over these apps is that in order for any app to be able to access Twitter feeds is via their official lines. We suppose there are other ways, but who wants to battle Twitter? Noone, that’s who.
[via UberMedia]
Thanks for the update. Many of the businesses listed on the Social Media Directory use these 3rd party clients when posting business listings and reviews. Twitter and all the clients have become such useful tools that even a momentary bump in the road, causes shock waves around the world.
sounds scary. too bad automation can be de-automated
Echofon is my favorite twitter client, the new panel mode (version 2.0) is great and now it’s even easier to use since it appears as a sidebar within the browser window. Echofon 2.0 allows you to mute both users and hashtags. Echofon is also available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac (see: http://www.softwarecrew.com/2011/04/echofon-2-0-for-firefox-released/)