(2012-06-13) Twitter Meta Tag Expanded Tweets

Dave Winer discovered that Twitter is playing some Expanded Tweet games with some BigCo partners to show more of their info alongside the tweet.

• I Commented to suggest maybe they're just using OpenGraph. But it sounds like not just anyone gets their tags used.
• Update: Twitter has now made an announcement about this.
• Update: Twitter also has new documentation about a Twitter Cards model which sounds a lot like OpenGraph. But not open to everyone.
  • more coverage

This plays into Dave's concern stated a week ago that info publishers (aka Newspaper-s) might find themselves frozen out of a Twitter-controlled news flow that isn't a Common Carrier.

• Which also seems related to recent changes to Twitter's new "Display Guidelines" that Twitter is continuing to exert ownership control over its Platform.
• Jun30 update: this isn't theoretical: Twitter just cut off LinkedIn, as Michael Sippey posted about Twitter's current thinking.

Fresh time to consider an Open Twitter?

• Jun30: Brent Simmons lists the requirements/protocols to use.
• Dave Winer is skeptical that developers will work together on this: I don't think Twitter developers create products to provide functionality to their users. I think they do it to provide an interface to Twitter. Perhaps a subtle distinction, but an important one. It's a lot like the days when I was an Apple developer. Everyone hoped they would be the one who Apple made a deal with. Few developers did what would have been smart for all of us, worked first with other developers to make each other strong. It's a variant of the Prisoners Dilemma. I agree that commercial developers are unlikely to do this, but maybe some Open Source folks can do this.
  • Dave also notes how he has been warning Newspaper-s that depending on Twitter and other closed systems is a risk, as they could find themselves in Pay To Play situations, having helped add Critical Mass a new Monopoly player. (Parallel: Book Publishing and Amazon.)
• Jul26 update: Dave Winer on [how](http://scripting.com/stories/2012/07/25/anOpen TwitterlikeEcosystem.html) much easier things become if you relax the Real Time requirement.
  • Sept09 update: but Fred Wilson notes that people need some Real Time conversation medium that's Mobile-friendly. But does that need to be in the MicroBlogging environment? Where's the line if it's One Big Soup?
• Aug11 update: Dave Winer gives his list of requirements for a Twitter clone. (Note part of his framing is that you want to completely clone Twitter's API, so that client apps can work with both networks. Though this might accelerate the lockout of those apps from Twitter (at least for non-writing).)
• Aug13 update: Albert Wenger notes the Open Standards to follow.
• Sept04 thought: maybe Yahoo should tweak its Portal offering, which is essentially an RssAggregator, to be the key to a Twitter competitor.

Jul24 update: Dick Costolo talks to the Wall St Journal.

• In its events push, Mr. Costolo said Twitter is vying to "more closely tie the shared experience on Twitter to the actual event that is happening." As Twitter burnishes its platform, Mr. Costolo added that Twitter also wants to move away from companies that "build off of Twitter, to a world where people build into Twitter."
• As Twitter works to become a platform, it has put limits on firms creating services that are similar to what Twitter already offers, such as allowing people to write and publish tweets, or that move people to non-Twitter websites. Mr. Costolo reiterated that Twitter will soon explain further restrictions. Some developers say they don't know where Twitter will draw the line between services that mimic or rival what Twitter already does and new features that expand Twitter.

Aug16: The new rules Twitter developers must adhere to touch on three specific areas: every API call must authenticate itself; certain API calls will be more limited, while others will now be accessible more frequently; and—most significantly—third-party Twitter apps will be subject to significantly more stringent limits on what they can do and how they can grow.

Aug22: TumblR got whacked: To our dismay, Twitter has restricted our users’ ability to “Find Twitter Friends” on Tumblr. Given our history of embracing their platform, this is especially upsetting. Our syndication feature is responsible for hundreds of millions of tweets, and we eagerly enabled Twitter Cards across 70 million blogs and 30 billion posts as one of Twitter’s first partners. While we’re delighted by the response to our integrations with FaceBook and GMail, we are truly disappointed by Twitter’s decision.

Sept06: their API v1.1 enacted - no more RSS support at all.