UPDATED 10:52 EDT / FEBRUARY 21 2011

UberTwitter and twidroyd Restored by Twitter, Blackberry Natives Still Restless

UberSocial-on-iPhone-4 From the looks of it two of the apps that Twitter gave the axe last week have gotten the keys to the API back and are once again back in the fray. UberTwitter, now known as UberSocial, and twidroyd have been returned to tweeting status as of yesterday afternoon after making multiple concessions to Twitter involving breaches of terms of service involving privacy, monetization, and trademark violations.

Twitter wrote on its support blog,

We’ve given the developers of twidroyd and UberSocial for Blackberry (formerly UberTwitter) access to the Twitter API again. Our initial review indicates that steps have been taken to remedy the violations for these applications.

When the developer updates twidroyd and Ubersocial, you’ll be able to download their updates to access Tweets again on these applications.

It’s taken a few hours since the API restoration for UberSocial and twidroyd to get back in the game, but they updated versions are now available for download.

Twitter says that it has suspended a lot of applications that have violated its terms of service in the past, but insofar, this has caused the biggest splash in any given venue. In fact, according to Techworld, “The term ‘#ubertwitter’ jumped to the front of the Twitter trending topics line ahead of ‘Queen Gaga’ and the Radiohead-related ‘Thomas Yorke’ and “Lotus Flower” as word spread of the popular mobile Twitter client’s temporary shutdown.”

Fortunately, UberMedia moved extremely quickly to update their app and get in the right light with Twitter so they’re back in the market. Questions still remain if Twitter acted too hastily or suddenly in the case of an app with such an apparently strong following. This seems especially ill timed with Twitter pushing their own apps for both Android and Blackberry. Sources from Twitter do claim that they had conversations with UberMedia in April 2010 concerning the privacy issues.

Bill Gross, founder and CEO of UberMedia posted on the Quora forums early on about why Twitter hobbled their app and what his company intended to do in order to resolve the situation:

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, and that this service may post private messages on a public website.  At their request, we have removed this ability.
2. Twitter said that in UberCurrent we change links that are part of an affiliate program to be our own links.  We don’t currently do this, but we removed all changing of links to eliminate any possibility of this.
3. Twitter said that they would like us to change the name UberTwitter, and we have changed the name to UberSocial, effective immediately.
Twitter also said that as soon as we made these changes, they would restore our access to their API.  All the changes have been made, and Twitter has been notified, and we are waiting for the apps to be restored.

True to their word, Twitter has restored the apps.

twidroyd seems to have made similar concessions, but a name change is not part of their reaction. Far fewer details exist on their side of the issue.


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