Twitter chokes web clients: pulls 'via' stamp from tweets

Twitter’s control over other web-clients that allow users to tweet is getting more and more restrictive. After announcing new restrictive API rules for app developers, Twitter has now ensured that the via stamp won’t be visible once users tweet. What this means is that if users use say a tweet client like Tweet-bot, or Seesmic to tweet or re-tweet something, the tweet will no longer show the via stamp at the bottom which carried the name of the client. In effect, Twitter has killed visibility for a lot of Tweeting clients by ensuring that their name no longer appears on the Tweet. This change was first noticed by, app developer, John Sheehan here. The big question is why is Twitter removing the via stamp. As this post on The Next Web points out, the stamp drives downloads and adoption of third-party clients. If a tastemaker or Twitter celebrity tweets out ‘via Tweetbot’, people are likely to look up that client and perhaps switch away from the official versions. Twitter likely doesn’t want to keep promoting clients outside of its own, so it’s removing the stamp. The iPhone version of Twitter removed the stamp in July, this year. [caption id=“attachment_433139” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AFP[/caption] Twitter, announced a new set of rules for third-party Twitter app developers this month and the rules, which are seen as rigid and restrictive, seemed to be aimed at choking Tweet clients. Third-party Twitter apps such as Tweetbot, Tweetcaster, Seesmic, UberSocial, Plume for Twitter and Twitterrific are basically going to pay the price under Twitter’s new rules. In the blogpost, which announced the new API rules, Twitter had mentioned, that: Nearly eighteen months ago, we gave developers guidance that they should not build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.  Just last week, Tumblr and Instagram had faced problems over Twitter’s new api rules. Tumblr in a comment had said, that Twitter isn’t playing fair after the blogging platform was forced to take off the find friends from Twitter feature. Instagram also removed the find friends feature from its service after Twitter revoked the API. Now by removing the via stamp, Twitter is ensuring that app developers get less visibility on the website.