Josh Babetski : Quixotic Bravado

• Sent an email written in haiku this morning. #
• “I can see the duck.” – Photo: http://bkite.com/03ZGG #

• “Lost” left me lost last night me thinks. Is it me or was there just way too many things going on at once. May need to re-watch. #
• @hearsmusic The concepts in Lost I get no problem. It just struck me a very jumpy between all the various plot threads. in reply to hearsmusic #
• @danielklotz I don’t watch the Lost recap shows, or any recap/clip shows for that matter. in reply to danielklotz #
• RT @newsycombinator: Obama’s Mac-savvy team lands in Microsoft hell at White House http://tinyurl.com/blzpkp Great headline! #
• Blog Post: Twitter Rate Limiting API Uproar – http://cli.gs/QXhBUm #
• @bracco Vouch for @Tweetie; best Twitter app for the iPhone; worth $3. Plus you can never go wrong with fart noises in an iPhone app. in reply to bracco #
• @kellywatson Leave a Yelp review when you get bad (or good) service. Not enough locals leveraging it. Plus, it shows up on @MaqpQuest Local. in reply to kellywatson #
• @bracco For my desk set-up I use @Tweetdeck, haven’t found anything better for my work flow. Mobile: @Tweetie or via the @Brightkite app. in reply to bracco #
• Decided that anyone participating retweet-to-win pyramid promotions/schemes will probably get unfollowed. With me? Retweet to 20 friends. #

So Twitter is going to begin rate limiting requests to their API soon. Some developers are upset over this. Some of the reasons they are upset include:

• They feel Twitter should “fix” the existing API, citing it as a reason they need to make so many requests currently
• They feel Twitter shouldn’t have a rate limit at all. This is of course ignorant. Yes, let’s not safeguard against some dude’s poorly coded app and let it bring down or slow the Twitter infrastructure for other devs.
• They’re investing time and effort into building applications which depend on these APIs. As the apps gain popularity, they’ll begin or would already exceed these limits.
• They’re building a business on a service using Twitter APIs; that business is now at risk

Here’s the real reason some of them are upset:

They feel an unjustified sense of entitlement.

Twitter’s Point-of-View

Now, I’m not unsympathetic to the position this now puts many devs in. I know people who are building cool things using Twitter’s API, but I can also see things from Twitter’s perspective.

• They need to control costs. Pinging the crap out of their servers costs money and many of these services are putting heat on these servers without cutting Twitter a check or otherwise being mindful of resource consumption.
• They need to monetize their service. People are monetizing something Twitter hasn’t yet. If Twitter can’t make money, eventually neither will anyone building applications that piggyback off of them. Meanwhile, getting overhead costs under control is prudent. See above.
• They offered these developers no agreement as to how available they must make their API service and no guarantees. So you spent six months in your basement building a cool Twitter service. I sincerely feel for you, but Twitter didn’t ask you to do it. Using the Twitter API to archive your tweets is one thing, attempting to build a business on top of it is another.
• This policy change likely impacts only a very small percentage of developers.

But They Need Us

Somewhere a righteous dev is saying to themselves: “But all these applications we made helped make Twitter the popular service it it today.”

Of this I have no doubt. I’m sure the gang at Twitter HQ is aware of this too. There’s already reasonable speculation if this move will hurt Twitter’s growth, but maybe they want to now better control that growth. Still, now will begin the uneasy dance between developers and Twitter over where the ROI line is for both. Developers want to make applications built on Twitter and potentially profit. Twitter needs usage and popularity to stay high, in addition to initiating this monetization strategy we’re all curious about. Instead of complaining how devs have been wronged by Twitter, they should ask themselves some questions:

What is the value proposition of your application to Twitter?

The service is already crazy-popular so you can’t really offer the value proposition that their app will increase users substantially. I would speculate that most people onramp with Twitter on the web site, then migrate to third-party apps later. How do you help keep people using Twitter?

Is it popular enough that your users will reduce their Twitter usage, make their dissatisfaction loudly known to Twitter or not use it at all if your application went away?

Is the value of Twitter availability such that it’s worth paying to have higher rate limits? Enough users to make Twitter think twice?

If so, instead of irking the Twitter team with bitching, start a constructive dialogue with them over what kind of arrangement you can make to maintain a higher rate limit.

But the API Sucks!

It certainly can be improved, but flush with cash or not, Twitter is a start-up and focused on making that service sustainable in order to eventually return value to their investors. If you can articulate how fixing their current API accomplishes that and warrants a higher priority than other tasks in front of them, I’m sure they’ll be happy to listen to you.

Bottom Line

If you still feel so wronged by Twitter’s actions, consider it a cautionary tale and something to consider when building an application that has a dependancy on a service you’re getting for free and without an SLA.

• @ryancarson decided that his retweet competition was a bad idea. Please retweet to 20 people. Oh, wait… that’s not right. http://bit.ly/GEtP in reply to ryancarson #
• Out for some beer and wings with friends. – http://bkite.com/03VLe #
• Forgot “Lost” is back on tonight! Hurrah for DVR technology, but also going to wrap up and get home soon to watch it. #

• For all my friends local to DC and that have traveled down for the Inauguration: good luck, have fun, be safe and enjoy. #
• “Former President George Bush” has such a nice ring to it. Now, time for “what’s next” and for Team Obama to clock in… after some partying. #
• We had full-screen inauguration coverage running on Hulu on spare office monitor, but watching Fox News is just wrong. On MS-NBC feed now. #
• @briandewitt Tried CNN; no full screen option.We’ve got the monitor precariously perched so this whole corner of the office can watch. in reply to briandewitt #
• Crowd gathering around monitors to watch Obama Inauguration. Productivity at a standstill. – http://bkite.com/03TmL #
• One down, one to go! Interesting side note, people in DC reporting cell phone reception improving when Aretha’s big hat took the podium. #
• Obama is clocked in; so are you. Back to work everybody, change takes us all. #
• @gruber Based on what? in reply to gruber #
• RT @jtnt: Somebody was launching a web site today: http://www.whitehouse.gov One with a blog: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog #
• “Municipal Upgrade.” Bush St in San Francisco renamed to Obama St. http://bit.ly/iCaN Funny and awesome! (Via @khartline via @laughingsquid) #
• I find that meetings where I’m wearing my monkey slippers to be most productive. #

• I haven’t posted on Twitter on a Sunday in some time. No reason other than I noticed I wasn’t; now seeing how long I can keep streak going. #
• In iWork ’09’s Pages, docs are now single files; no longer saved as packages by default. Especially great if you keep docs in ver. control. #
• Debating with @tracibabe if we should “put on pants” and run some errands or if we’re just going to stay camped out in the compound today. #
• RT @larrymyers: “Pants are The Man’s way of keeping you down.” Indeed. #
• Very happy that Webkit has an updater/installer built in now. The Web Inspector continues to improve and impress as well: http://webkit.org/ #
• Old bagger at Giant told us he wouldn’t have taken today off because he’s a bigot. WTF! Told Mgr. – http://bkite.com/03RC4 #
• Wrapped up a good first meeting w/ person no. 6 to hear the full pitch for the @Collectivus project. Excited about feedback & next steps. #
• @tlberglund Huzzah! Welcome to Team iPhone! About time! in reply to tlberglund #

• Unimpressed with iPhone Keynote Remote: Often slow to load and advance next slide even on home network, can’t imagine performance at a conf. #
• @lfaren I usually just use my Apple Remote. It works fine, you have to be aware of line-of-sight with the laptop sensor. in reply to lfaren #

• Tension is a killer and should best be avoided. #
• In a Friday morning meeting with Legal — I think all of them. #
• @HIRH The Harrisburg airport while you wait to get on a plane to go to a warm vacation spot. in reply to HIRH #
• Tweetie for iPhone updated! Now with flashlight and dirty, wet fart sounds. Brilliant! http://www.atebits.com/pee/ #
• @graham310 We all feel that way from time to time. ☺ in reply to graham310 #
• Really? Is anyone going to MISS Circuit City? ☠ Now if only we could get a Fry’s around here. #

• “The Change We Need” … President Al Gore won’t be missed. Even if he did save the planet. http://cli.gs/4Q44Jb (via @antthelimey) #
• Today’s lesson in @antthelimey British-isms: “pants” == bad; “tits” == good; “dog’s bollocks” == really good and better than “totally tits.” #
• RT @bcolflesh: Smurf-tastrophe: http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/79157/detail/ #
• Google Quick Search Box is a FAIL for now. Every attempt to use it results in my processors taking flight. I’ll wait for a stable beta. #

• @tracibabe made cookies and cake and appie pie last night! oh yum! in reply to tracibabe #
• Got a bunch of new music I need to check out from @matthewrrr. Very into cool stuff you probably never heard of. #
• jQuery 1.3 released http://bit.ly/tUzE (via @jeresig). It’s awesome! We use jQuery on @MapQuest Local. #
• Observed trending for words in 2009: waffles = up, monkeys = up, bacon = holding steady. #
• @icelander Shhhh… I didn’t register it yet! in reply to icelander #
• New iWork ‘09 just arrived. Feeling more productive already. Controlling presentations from my iPhone FTW! #
• @lilitroy @mhusson Concur w/ @larrymyers. You should be using Git, but if SVN it is, using a GUI will probably lead to bad things. in reply to lilitroy #
• Work video: “The Two-Headed Monster finds a phone” http://cli.gs/d99dtX #
• So what Steve Jobs is on med leave until June? If the stock drops it’ll be a great time to buy more on the cheap. Apple is not just one man. #
• @mhusson Pipe the SVN diff to Textmate. I think there’s a TMbundle too. Not in front of laptop to check right now. in reply to mhusson #