Hacker News Reader

Comment by marban | Hacker News Reader

I was the creator of Twidroyd (First and biggest Android Twitter app w/ ~70% marketshare) and there was a larger story behind the first big anti-3rd party move. Basically we had some plans to bring users over to a new network after we got acquired by Idealab — and Twitter got wind of it. Think Mastodon 2010 style.

View on HN

I wrote a paper on you and a couple of other third-party Twitter clients in undergrad on the importance of modern day brand preservation and protection for an integrated marketing class while this was playing out. In a roundabout way, you kind of helped me get an A in that class! :D

Lol, speaking of brand protection, there's even a reason why the app had to be renamed to ...droyd from ...droid.

The word “droid” is trademarked by Lucasfilm

That's not the "droid" you are looking for.

Naming your app as a portmanteau of two trademarked brand names is certainly brave!

Has there been any interest in telling this story in any rich medium (podcast, long form article, 30 minute youtube video, documentary, netflix series). Not only does that sound super interesting, but now that most/all of Twitter Execs have moved on - I wonder if you'd be able to get Twitter's side of the story as well.

Twitter was a different shop back then — You could literally jump on a call with Ev et al (and even humans at Google when it came to Android) but while significant decisions were made at the time, it's nothing more than a melancholic blip in tech history. Strangely enough, I'm working on a new product in this space but it won't touch Twitter's API for sure :)

E.g.: https://www.reuters.com/article/idIN341190544020111017 https://allthingsd.com/20111017/bill-gross-new-social-networ...

Uhh, need more details! What happened?

And Facebook 2007(?)-style: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interopera...

Twidroyd was one of my frequently used clients back when I had a Nexus phone, along with Seesmic client.

Nexus was already a Mercedes phone. We started when there wasn't even a physical device on the market.

This sounds fascinating, would love to hear more?

Juicy story. I'm all ears.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com