I’ve previously written about Twitter’s behavior towards its third-party developers and the risks they’re taking if they focus only on developing Twitter-based tools (See Twitter Commits Suicide and Twipocalypse Now). The bottom line is that building a business that is entirely dependent on a single partner isn’t a safe model to follow.

Surprise, Surprise?

So, should Twitter’s actions come as any surprise?

Yes! And, No.

Yes, because Twitter was built on the backs of tens of thousands of third-party developers who added much need functionality and played a key role making Twitter what it is today. These third-party developers, along with the broader Twitter community, were the ones who implemented hash tags, RTs, @ replies and many of the features that Twitter now takes for granted. Even Evan Williams, one of Twitter’s co-Founders, admitted as much at the 2009 TED Conference. See the embedded video below (thanks to Tac Anderson reminding me about this in his post Twitter Grows Up Figures Out Its Business Model And Doesn’t Need You Anymore).

And, No, because there has been ample warning about the risk of developing for Twitter – just read my posts mentioned above, and I certainly was not alone. Also, in their announcement, Twitter stated that enterprise tools such as Seesmic and HootSuite and special-purpose apps are welcome.

So, why is Twitter doing this?

For some insight, consider the following:

• Usage: While Twitter claims that 90% of users are using official Twitter apps, the blog Mashable disagrees claiming that only 58% of Twitter users access the service through official Twitter apps. That leaves a whopping 42% who never see the Twitter home page or those Twitter apps. This means that 42% of Twitter’s users may never see any of the various advertising features that Twitter has been counting on to actually justify its valuation.
• Money: Investors have poured $360 Million into the company over the past 5 years and it’s easy to understand why they might want an out. While these investors certainly could find eager buyers for their shares, they want to maximize their returns. That means pumping up the valuation of the company and finding an appropriate buyer who can afford it.

Buyer Beware

Unfortunately, there aren’t too many adequate suitors for the company, especially when it has a rumored price tag of $8-10 Billion. In order to justify that valuation Twitter needs to do the following:

• Work the kinks out of its advertising model so it can maximize ad revenue. To do this, Twitter needs to…
• Increase the number of people who use Twitter properties, thus maximizing exposure to those ads. To do this, Twitter needs to…
• Get those users to stop using third-party apps and “come home.” To do this it needs to…
• Kick those third-party apps out of the loop. This ultimately means putting an end to the Twitter ecosystem. To do this, Twitter needs to…
• Prevent third-party app developers from getting into the game and making conditions for those who are already there too difficult for them to operate, thus they’ll be forced to close down. To do this, Twitter needs to…
• Add more features to its properties. Something it’s already been doing.

My Prediction

I could go on, but to me the path is clear; within the next 12-24 months, as Twitter slowly improves its mobile apps and website, it will eventually cut off ALL third-party apps including TweetDeck and Seesmic. Then, once its numbers (traffic and review) demonstrate clear upward momentum, it will be sold to the highest bidder. Perhaps after that, Twitter’s new owners will remember the goldmine of innovation that Twitter’s third-party developers provided the company and invite them to return

One can only hope.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Neal Wiser is Vice President of Digital Strategy and Operations at The ODM Group where he leads teams in the creation and execution of digital marketing campaigns. You can follow Neal on Twitter (his handle is @NealWiser). Neal is also the Cofounder and Co-host of the Addicted to Social Media podcast.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Twitter’s Black Friday Signals an Exit Strategy

So what do you do when you really want a Twitter account but the account is inactive?

I was recently confronted with this issue when setting up this very blog. While I registered TwiTip.com early in 2008 with the hopes of starting a Twitter Tips site – I never considered registering @TwiTip as a user name here on Twitter. When it came to launching this site it dawned on me that it would be useful (and logical) to get the Twitter user name.

The problem is that it was already registered and had been for months. The frustrating part was that it was completely inactive – not a single tweet had been made. They hadn’t followed anyone and didn’t have any followers. This meant that direct messaging them wasn’t possible (you have to be mutual followers of one another to do this).

As I began to research if there was a way to get Twitter to hand over unused Twitter accounts I soon found out that there were many people with the same problem as me. There were also quite a few different opinions on whether it was possible to get these types of accounts released.

How to Secure an Unused Twitter Account

The good news is that there are a variety of ways to get an unused Twitter account. Lets start with the official response from Twitter.

A few days back I asked CEO of Twitter Evan Williams (@ev) for Twitters response to this problem. Do they release unused user accounts? Here’s his response:

“In our view, it does no one any good to take a Twitter username and not use it. So we do free up unused accounts on occasion.

(For example, we’re freeing up the unused @algore, so Al can use it instead of al_gore.) We have a rough guideline of 9 months of non-use.

However, it depends on the historic use of the account. Also, we don’t delete inactive accounts, we only rename them to free up usernames, so there is no data lost.

To inquire about the availability of a name, contact Twitter support.”

OK – so it is possible – but it can take 9 months and it is only a ‘rough guideline’. Also – Twitter support can be a little slow to respond – I did email them about my predicament but after a few days with no response I began to wonder if there was another way.

Note: if you want to find out how long a Twitter account has been registered simply type ‘WHOIS username’ into the update field on Twitter and you’ll get the information brought up on the screen like this:

What other methods do people have at their disposal?

The way that I secured TwiTip was to do two things. These won’t always work – but they are worth trying.

1. Follow the account name and then @reply to them

When you follow someone it is likely that they will be sent an email to notify them of their new follower. This relies upon them not switching the ‘notification of new follows’ option off – but considering that it is left on by default there’s a reasonable chance that they’ll at least be notified of them having a follower. The hope is that they’ll then login to their account to work out who it is and why they followed.

2. Ask your followers for help

Shoot out a request to your followers to see if anyone knows who owns the account. You might just get lucky.

3. Check the URL for the user name

It may be that you own the corresponding .com URL for the user name – but there is a chance that the person with the usename owns it. See if the URL is registered. If it is contact the owner of the URL to see if they own the username. If the site is registered but not in use do a WHOIS of the URL to find the owner contact details.

Also check other URLs similar to the username.com. This might sound a little too much – but as it turned out in my case – the person who owned @TwiTip had registered it because it was similar to another URL that they’d registered (they had registered a number of similar Twitter accounts).

Add Your Suggestions

I’m sure others of you will have other experiences of securing unused Twitter accounts and I’d love to hear your ideas and experiences.

PS – How my Story Ends – My story ends happily enough. I tried options #1 and #2 above and it was #1 that seems to have paid off. The person who had the account also had @Twittip (double ‘t’) as well as www.twittip.com and was happy to release them to me as a trade for a little of my time (consulting).

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



How to Secure an Unused Twitter Account