Twitter Announces Their FABRIC Developer Platform

At Flight on October 22, their first developer conference in four years, Twitter announced an app development platform called Fabric. Twitter is aiming to become the first stop for developers wanting to build or improve their mobile app. They will also be hoping to get back into the good graces of the app developers after their 2012 decision to tighten rules around apps that plug into the social-media service.

The tools available in Fabric will make it easier for developers to build apps, but Twitter will also be hoping to open up additional revenue streams. Developers will get the free tools and in exchange will hopefully be inclined to provide Twitter with a spot within their app, thus allowing Twitter to grow its ad presence across the more than 2 million apps found in Apple and Google.

Fabric is made up of three kits that will address some of the most universal challenges facing app developers. These are stability, distribution, and revenue and identity.

The Crashlytics kit will allow developers to track any app crashes, analyse app usage and beta distribution. Crashytics is able to detect a crash quickly and isolate the root cause of the crash down to the exact line of code. Developers spend less time on debugging and more time developing apps.

The Twitter kit includes three new products, Native Tweet embeds, Tweet composer, and Sign in with Twitter. Native Tweet embeds will allow developers to embed tweets into an app with a few simple lines of code. Tweet composer will allow app users to instantly share important moments in an app (game score, fitness milestone, etc.) to their Twitter followers.

Also forming part of the Twitter Kit is Digits, which will allow app users to sign-in using their phone number. No longer will users be required to sign in using Facebook, Twitter or be required to remember complex passwords.

The MoPub Kit is all about revenue, and how developers can integrate advertising into their apps. MoPub will support all major ad formats, including video, banners, and native ads.

Twitter is not alone in its aim to expand beyond its origins. Last year, Facebook bought app development service Parse. Since then they have launched App Links, which helps apps talk to each other.

Fabric will be available to developers in the next few weeks, with Digits available immediately in 216 countries and in 28 languages.

photo credit: @Twitter via photopin cc