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The micro-blogging universe was rocked last Friday by the sudden and unexpected suspension of the popular third-party mobile clients Twidroyd and UberTwitter by top Twitter brass.
The applications, alongside the popular UberCurrent utility, let mobile-device users access Twitter and a variety of different services from their smart phones. Twitter explained its actions on the official help center support page shortly thereafter. (As of Feb. 20, Twidroyd and UberSocial for Blackberry, formerly UberTwitter, were granted access after taking steps to remedy the violations.)
According to Twitter, the applications and their parent company, UberMedia, were guilty of repeatedly violating Twitter's policies for much of the past year, going back as far as April 2010. Specifically, it was alleged that the applications in question let users send messages longer than 140 characters (Twitter's limit), and in some cases, altered the content of users' tweets to make money from affiliate links.
One of the other major reasons given for the suspension was trademark infringement on Twitter's brand identity. The company discourages the use of names that are similar to its own by third-party extension developers. TweetDeck, which was incidentally purchased last week by UberMedia, is one obvious exception that seems to have been given amnesty. Considering TweetDeck's wild popularity, it's highly unlikely that Twitter would decide to ban them, too.
UberTwitter has already changed its name to UberSocial to comply with trademark policies.
The recent actions by Twitter aren't entirely shocking, as it has begun to assert greater control over its platform. Though an IPO might not happen any time soon, Twitter is still determined to boost profits in order to justify its theoretical $10 billion valuation. It can't afford to have third-party applications siphoning off revenue when it is barely profitable, itself. It's clear that it wants to protect its brand identity and deliver the best experience possible for its users. But, the financial motivations for the sanctions against UberMedia are equally important. As Twitter moves forward with more aggressive monetization plans over the coming year, developers can probably expect a few more suspensions in the near future.
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