Twitter cracks down on companies that provide user stats after stock hammering

There are 982 million registered Twitter accounts, but only 241 million monthly users actively use it - suggesting that most people who sign up for Twitter abandon it or don’t really make full use of it.

In fact, most people on Twitter don’t tweet , according to third-party companies such as Twopcharts. Twitter’s business model is dependent on user engagement, so even if there are plenty of users passively watching as the tweets go by, it’s no good for Twitter. In fact the revelation of such statistics have hurt Twitter more than anything else, as it stock price has come crashing down.

Companies like Twopcharts that provide user base data based on Twitter’s APIs have now come under the scanner. Twitter is shutting off the API access to certain companies who have published stats on how big Twitter’s user base really is. And in fact, the company could go beyond this and step in to the void created by this culling, by become the sole purveyor of all Twitter data.

According to Business Insider, Twitter has  been building on its own data crunching business   by acquiring businesses such as MoPub, CrashAnalytics, BlueFin Labs, which hints that Twitter could decide to sell user preferences and expand in the data space in the future.

The report comes after Twitter acquired Gnip in April. Gnip’s data was repackaged and sold to companies that used this information, by Twitter. So it does look like Twitter is trying to cut middlemen out of the equation by providing data themselves to other companies. The move shows Twitter is wary of companies misrepresenting its user base in general and is particularly wary of third parties that can spin negative stories from said data.

This May, Twitter’s stocks suffered an all-time low following the expiration of the IPO lock-up period preventing employees and early investors from selling stock. Since then, Twitter has been taking efforts to revamp its service in order to make it more attractive for people to use, and brands to showcase their products.  According to Business Insider , third-party companies that published their own measures of Twitter’s user base were a thorn in Twitter’s side. That’s when the company decided to cull developers from its API.

Twitter has been toying with not only the data crunching business, but also with adding purchasing features in order to add new revenue streams. On the same line, it recently launched a new feature called #AmazonCart in India , which allows users to add Amazon products to their shopping basket without having to leave Twitter.