Twitter to do live video – sucks to be a developer

Real-time video tweets.

Sounds familiar?

Well it should since there are several developers who have tried to build a business on top of Twitter by providing a similar service. However developers like Twitpic, the current favorite, Twiddeo and Tweetube can only supply a link within a Twitter message that leads to the site where the video message is posted. What Twitter apparently plans on doing as some sort of “modernization” of the service is to allow video Twitter messages to be posted to the timelines.

This is all according to a post at the Telegraph Online and from a discussion among the founders of Twitter about what can be done to help upgrade the service and make it even more popular.

This type of copying from Twitter is nothing new. Rather than build or improve their own search Twitter bought Summize. Retweeting becomes popular and rather than work with the format developed by both users and developers Twitter scrambles it all up with their own interpretation of how retweets should work on the service. Now they want to get into video messages much like 12Seconds or the other three services mentioned effectively shutting those developers out of the Twitter universe.

If you don’t think so just look to bit.ly as a prime example. Up until Twitter made them the default URL shortener they were just another service getting some good press and threatening TinyURL. Once they became the preferred shortener bit.ly overtook TinyURL and is now the most used URL shortener.

Developing for the Twitter platform is becoming a highly questionable venture as you never know if Twitter is suddenly going to take an interest in whatever niche of the Twittersphere you are trying to work in. But be assured if they do and they decide to go it alone you might as well fold up shop.