Twitter removes 3rd Party App source from Tweets

Previously if you posted your Tweets via a 3rd party app (eg Hootsuite, SocialOomph, SproutSocial etc) and you expanded the tweet it will show you the source of the application that sent the message.

This would be a link back to the applications website and this was no doubt driving substantial traffic to these sites and helping signup new users.

Twitter yesterday rolled out a change whereby all of these 3rd party application sources are now removed from tweets.

For example I posted this tweet yesterday via an application:

Introducing allinstagram.com bit.ly/MUC38Q on @smn_australia

— David Cowling (@SMN_Australia) August 26, 2012

and there is no source showing anymore.

This may mean that some applications get less use and exposure, and therefore the viability of these apps comes into question.

However Twitter still helps out their ‘special partners’.

Photobucket is the official picture service on Twitter. Any photos posted still get the photobucket source. Eg see this Tweet:

However for leading social media websites and apps – the rules are different

You can this of the leading social media apps as ‘first party apps’.

For example if you share or update from Instagram, Flickr, Facebook, Foursquare etc – Twitter still leaves the source and social network icon (favicon size) in the Tweet source).

Eg –

Twitter treating the main players differently

A problem I am seeing is that Twitter recently blocked both Instagram and Tumblr from using the Twitter Find My Friends API. That means you can no longer find your Twitter friends on Instagram or Tumblr by the API.

However, Twitter has left this option available for Foursquare. Why?

Foursquare and Twitter have worked together for a long time (well before Instagram and Tumblr). Also Foursquare doesn’t directly compete with any Twitter products all that much – whereas it was rumored that Twitter was also trying to buy Instagram (but failed), and Tumblr does compete with Posterous (Posterous is owned by Twitter).

Why is this a problem?

To your average user, it’s not.

However Twitter developers won’t really appreciate their app vanishing into the dark with no recognition from Twitter that they are part of the ecosystem.

Also power users like to see what apps are being used on the site and this is now not as easy to do.

It will be interesting to see Twitter’s next move as they look to ‘gain more control’ over what is appearing on their site – much of which is coming from 3rd party applications.