Why did Twitter suspend UberTwitter?
Answer (1 of 7): Twitter told us today that they suspended our applications for three reasons: — 1. Twitter said that in UberTwitter and Twidroyd we use a tweet-elongation service named tmi.me that allows people to write more than 140 characters …
Context & Ripple Effects
On February 18, 2011, Twitter pulled UberMedia's flagship clients — UberTwitter and Twidroyd — citing, per the company's own account relayed in a Quora answer, violations that include the tmi.me tweet-elongation service, which lets users exceed the 140-character limit. The story traveled fast: GigaOM landed an interview with UberMedia founder Bill Gross on the clampdown the same day, and Mark Suster weighed in at Both Sides of the Table.
The timing matters against Twitter's own arc this year: CEO Dick Costolo has been under pressure to prove the service can make money, and an ecosystem of third-party clients sitting between Twitter and its users complicates advertising and owned-experience strategies. This suspension is the sharpest enforcement action yet against the largest independent client maker.
First-order effects
- Millions of UberTwitter and Twidroyd users lose their primary access path to Twitter until the apps are reinstated or fixed, and UberMedia's reach across both mobile platforms is cut to zero overnight.
- Bill Gross's company must publicly negotiate with Twitter on terms for return — the GigaOM interview shows UberMedia going straight to press to defend itself rather than waiting out the blackout.
Second-order effects
- Every other third-party Twitter client now has to audit features like long-tweet workarounds against Twitter's stated rules, since the tmi.me charge establishes that exceeding the character limit is an enforceable violation, not a tolerated extension.
- Competing clients and mobile carriers that pre-install these apps face forced re-bundling decisions if reinstatement comes with conditions set by Twitter.
Third-order effects
- If Twitter keeps enforcing client-side rules this aggressively while chasing revenue, the third-party client ecosystem consolidates around officially sanctioned partners — platform owners deciding which interfaces survive rather than the open API deciding.
- The episode sets a template for how a maturing social platform converts an open developer culture into controlled distribution, with suspensions as leverage in commercial negotiations.
The trend: As Twitter pushes toward monetization under Dick Costolo, it is trading openness for control, using suspensions to discipline the third-party clients that once built its mobile experience.