Twitter Not Fair to Developers?

Jesse Stay, a developer of social networking applications, has taken Twitter to task in a blog post, claiming the service leaves developers hanging with swift changes that come with no warning.

Stay, whose April 21 post is entitled "I Should Have Heeded My Own Advice About Twitter," complains of Twitter pulling the rug out from under developers by discouraging auto-following and enacting policies to allow users to allow only 1,000 people a day. Stay has voiced his dissent over Twitter's practices before.

Said Stay in his latest post:

"About a full year ago, I wrote of developers leaving the Twitter development platform due to Twitter consistently removing features, making changes without warning developers, and effectively putting developers out of business with just a single change of policy. I advised other developers to be careful building a business model around Twitter, adding that it was a risky move, much more risky than many of the other platforms out there.  It would seem I should have taken my own advice."

Stay said his SocialToo service is directly affected by Twitter's decision making and he calls for firm terms of service from Twitter.

Added Stay:

"Today Twitter pulled the rug out from under its developers once more by, with absolutely no notice, announcing that (paraphrased, in my words) since their way was the right way, they were discouraging auto-following, and would only allow a user to follow 1,000 people per day. What Twitter neglected was that, while not many, myself and others were building business plans around the users that would need this. A little notice would have been helpful, but is very consistent with the way developers have been treated over the past year or more by Twitter. Yes, I’m a big boy and we’ll survive, but that’s besides the point. You can read more about what developers are experiencing over on LouisGray. Put lightly, I’m not happy."

Finally, Stay sums up his frustration with some sound advice for Twitter. "Twitter, it’s time to get your act together," Stay said concluding his post. "Hire some more smart people, get people in management that know how to make these decisions right, and make us believe, not by words alone, but by actual actions, that you’re going to do something about it. If you don’t, as I’ve said before, when the developers leave, so will your users."