Seriously.
This isn't new eg [1].
Also, I don't really buy into the argument that these third-party providers is what made Twitter popular. IMHO Twitter made Twitter popular and the devs just followed the money.
[1]: http://gigaom.com/2011/06/07/fred-wilson-to-devs-expect-plat...
Tolerance for BS decreases as the number of perceived choices increases. This seems to be true across the board, from software to relationships.
Famously? Really? As in "some random non professional designers/adobe users complained on the intertubes".
Care to mention how, say, Photoshop, Premmiere or Lightroom CS6 are worse than previous versions? All have been praised as substantial updates.
Bonus points for not using non-technical catch-all words like "bloated".
I would aldo like to hear about the worthy replacement, with feature parity to those products.
Abode products, due to the custom UI, have some odd look&feel issues in some controls. They also have bugs like any program has (far less than most, though, especially considering scope and complexity).
That said, they are the industry leading products, with no substitution that has the same breadth for professional wokflows. So, no, its not about "tolerance", its about being the "best game in town".
People jumped ship from Quark to inDesign in a heartbeat, when the option emerged.
And when they are basically the same, the one that fits in with the entire suite of applications she uses is one she will want to use more often.
Adobe does not begin with PDF's and end with Flash.
Calling it the developers fault is just ridiculous.
Twitter should either own up to their current strategy and remove the API altogether (publicly), or keep the API and support it like it's a service that matters.
That's true, but in no way is this invitation a binding contract.
It's a temporary bargain: The big player gets a cheap way to offer more functionality to his users, and the API-users profit from the big audience of the platform.
As soon as one player decides that the bargain isn't worth it anymore, the deal is off. It's no one's fault, just the nature of it.
We may end up at the stage where the most successful third party APIs are those that provide strong bilateral agreements and service guarantees, so that the developer doesn't live in fear that the nerdy rug will be unpredictably pulled out from underneath them.
Established businesses should feel less secure today as it seems far harder for one business to have a stranglehold on the market. Software distribution costs have been lowered by the internet. Development costs have also been lowered because we no need to push wheelbarrows of cash to Oracle, et al. We have better tools, better infrastructure, and shorter development cycles. Marketing is easier, cheaper, and more apt to give rapid feedback.
If a company like Google struggles to launch a new social network with their existing huge user base, you know its hard. Yes social networks and platforms do die, like MySpace and RIMM, and new ones burst in to prominence like Pinterest or Android, but for every new network or platform that succeeds, hundreds or more probably thousands fail.
Small third party developers have strong incentives to put up with the risks involved in using API's provided by dangerous companies like Twitter, Facebook and Apple because they have to if they want to get access to all the users those companies own.
Google failed in part because they never really communicated what Google+ is. I still don't really grok what it's for or why I should use it, and that's why I don't. They really just didn't produce a compelling product, brand it well, or market it effectively. For whatever reason, Google's marketers doesn't appear to be of the same caliber as their engineers.
Someone will pull Twitter's pants down and at the same time eat their lunch. I love Twitter, but I can't wait to see what cool thing replaces them.
Uh, its for pretty much the same thing Facebook is for, except you can do lists and make them public or private, you seriously didn't get that?
Or did you just not use it because the people in your network weren't using it. If your friends are already on Facebook there is almost no reason for you to migrate to a new social network where your friends, or chosen thought leaders, aren't active. Maybe you will tack it on as a 3rd, 4th or 5th social network where it will mostly just consume more of your time.
As I said, yes network do rise and fall but it is enormously difficult to get that ball rolling and keep it rolling. FriendFeed was an awesome social network, with all star founders, but it never gained that critical mass, the founders gave up believing they could displace Facebook so they sold it down the river... to Facebook.
It's what the con-man (/person) lives on, the old: "There's a sucker born every minute."
And even when individuals are not deliberate in forethought and intent, social systems tend to recreate these patterns. When your family needs to eat (metaphorically, when not literally), you'll restrict your API, too, if that's what it takes.
There's a reason that metaphors stick around. "Don't be a sharecropper." "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." "Time is money." Etc.