Closing In On Launch, Twitter Tweaks Its Retweet API And Shares A Picture
In the Twitter API Announcement Google Group today, developer Marcel Molina posted a couple interesting updates about the upcoming Retweet API. — First, the launch of the new API is “close at hand.”
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands two weeks after coverage flagged, as an unconfirmed rumor, that Twitter might formally adopt the retweet and reshape how users behave on the platform. With the service past 44.5 million worldwide users as of June 2009 and paid commercial accounts rolling out in late August, an official Retweet API would move a grassroots sharing habit onto infrastructure Twitter itself controls.
Developer Marcel Molina's post to the Twitter API Announcement Google Group — tweaks landing and launch described as close at hand — signals that the formalization is no longer just speculation but shipping code.
First-order effects
- Third-party developers building on the Twitter API gain an official retweet endpoint, replacing whatever home-grown implementations their clients have been using.
Second-order effects
- Client applications lose retweet formatting as a differentiator once everyone converges on Twitter's canonical version, while the company pairs the feature with its new paid commercial accounts to make the platform more attractive to business users.
Third-order effects
- If Twitter keeps absorbing community-invented conventions into first-class API features, the line between what the platform provides centrally and what the surrounding developer ecosystem improvises will keep narrowing.
The trend: Twitter is converting grassroots user behaviors into officially sanctioned API features, tightening central control over how its fast-growing network shares content.