There’s dumb, then there’s Twitter Dumb™

Louis Gray has the scoop on a rather interesting story about Twitter bitting the hands of the Twitter developer community. The short version is that Twitter has restricted unauthenticated API requests to 100 per hour, the same current rate Twitter users have when accessing Twitter via third party tools.

The net effect: Twitter focused services such as Somewhere, FriendBinder, Twitterurly, PeopleBrowsr, and just about any other third party application that relies on unauthenticated Twitter API requests have become nearly as useful as tits on a bull.

Here’s the message Twutterurly is showing its users

One of the long credited reasons for Twitter’s success has been support for third party applications, and this is the whole point of having an API in the first place. Twitter crippling third party application providers is like walking up to your most loyal users, the very people who helped get you where you are today, and saying F*^& Off. It’s not just dumb, it’s Twitter Dumb™ Normally I’d precede with a rant here about how completely screwed up the management of Twitter is, but you’ve heard all that before. Really, this shouldn’t be surprising given the ongoing fail whale that is the soap opera of Twitter.