Twitter for BlackBerry App Now Available
There has never been a more exciting time in the mobile industry than right now. The speed at which devices, applications, and networks are evolving is inspiring. Thankfully, Twitter is perfectly suited to take advantage of all this goodness …
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands in the middle of a deliberate Twitter mobile sprint: on the very same day, April 9, 2010, Twitter shipped its official iPhone app, part of a push the company ties to rapid global growth and its SMS origins behind the 140-character limit. A native BlackBerry client extends that strategy to the device ecosystem where business users concentrate.
The move also follows a template set weeks earlier by LinkedIn's BlackBerry app on March 30, 2010 — professional and social networks treating RIM's platform as a first-class target rather than an afterthought next to the iPhone.
First-order effects
- BlackBerry's business-heavy installed base gets an official Twitter client for the first time, removing reliance on unofficial routes to the service.
- RIM gains another marquee consumer-internet app on its platform at exactly the moment the iPhone app ecosystem is setting user expectations.
Second-order effects
- LinkedIn's earlier BlackBerry commitment signals the pattern other social and professional networks will feel pressure to match, making per-platform native clients table stakes rather than optional.
- As official clients spread, the value of whatever third-party BlackBerry Twitter access users currently cobble together erodes, pushing those developers toward features the official app lacks.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, 2010's platform contest shifts from who has a website to who ships polished native apps on every major OS — with BlackBerry still counted among the must-support platforms this year.
- For a service built on SMS, moving to dedicated clients on each handset ecosystem marks the structural turn from carrier-mediated messaging toward app-store-distributed software.
The trend: Consumer web services are racing to formalize native mobile apps on every major smartphone OS, and in spring 2010 BlackBerry remains a mandatory stop on that list alongside the iPhone.