Twitter: You build them up, and you knock them down

We’ve known about Twitter’s homebrewed URL shortener T.co for a while now. But with today’s leak of documents about the imminent release of their own retweet button, as reported by Mashable, it’s clear that the company which built itself on third-party development is now preparing to launch a series of in-house competitors. It’s fair to presume that this has got something to do with controlling (and, perchance, improving) the user-experience of Twitter’s presence in the broader internet.

The official Twitter apps for Android and iPhone, released earlier this year, were only the beginning; with T.co, the fate of Bit.ly, the most common shortener used on the microblogging service (and the company which powers the Indy’s own Ind.pn shortener) hangs in the balance. Twitter have said they’ll still allow third-party services, but if the official Twitter Android app’s effect on its competitors is anything to go by, Bit.ly will face losing its major source of traffic. At this point we can only hope that, with 7 million urls shortened by the company every day, we’re not going to witness the web’s worst ever case of linkrot.

And so, if today’s leak is to be believed, Bit.ly have now got company in the form of Tweetmeme, the web’s go to service for on-page retweeting. We have Tweetmeme buttons on these blogs and for the Independent site, as I discussed on Friday, and as far as these things go they’re very neat and easy-to-use. Here’s an example of the Twitter button, which Mashable claims will not work for most users:

Of course, there’s always the argument that if you build your business on the back of a giant, you’ve little right to complain when it rolls over and crushes you. But at the same time, services like these two have been an integral part of Twitter’s ongoing success, and the ecosystem of Twitter apps, buttons, desktop clients and everything else has been there to supplement the fledgling company’s lack of infrastructure at the time they needed it the most. They’ve provided services that have been crucial to Twitter’s metamorphosis into a company with more than 100 million users. And now, just as you’d think it was time to start thanking them for all their help, they’re being left out in the cold to peer through the window as Twitter’s own-brand alternatives take their former preferred positions.

Wotsits and other interview phenomena

Liz Hurley and Enoch Powell are the two most famous people to record their own interviews, a quick check with the Features desk has informed me. I, unfortunately, do not, and so have no proof whatsoever that I didn’t inadvertently namecheck a famous crisp brand in tomorrow’s edition of New Media Age, when talking about our Facebook buttons. “Every website has to have a way of knowing what’s it’s users are doing,” I said, apparently. Follow the link (paywalled) for more savoury-snack based insights into our social media policy.

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