UPDATED 23:24 EDT / NOVEMBER 14 2017

BIG DATA

With new API service, Twitter tries to woo developers back – and make a little coin

Twitter Inc. is attempting to appeal to developers again with a new “premium” application programming interface that gives outside companies access to additional Twitter data at a lower cost point.

The new service, “Twitter premium APIs,” is being pitched as bringing “reliability and stability of our enterprise APIs to our broader developer ecosystem for the first time,” according to a blog post from Twitter’s Adam Tornes. The new service is said to include a clear upgrade path that scales access and price to fit user needs, with Tornes adding that the company has built the new service to “enable innovation.”

Twitter has continued to beg for developers to return and support its platform for about the last two years after it infamously burned all its third-party developers back in 2011. For those who don’t recall Twitter’s action back then, the short version is that the company grew off the back of third-party support until one day, quite literally overnight, it cut off all those third-party developers. The backflip took four years to occur, with Twitter Chief Executive Office Jack Dorsey first begging for developers to come back and support Twitter in 2015, not coincidentally about the same time Twitter’s growth started to flatline.

The new API offering offers access to 30 days’ worth of tweets for $149 per month versus the current offering of free access to seven days’ worth of tweets or alternatively thousands of dollars for historical access.

According to reports, the API is all about Twitter attempting to raise additional revenue to make it profitable. Surprisingly, it may not be that far off after it beat revenue and earning per share estimates in the third quarter while providing higher-than-expected guidance for the fourth quarter.

“Twitter’s failure to provide a middle-ground level of API access to its data until only now has been a sore spot” among developers, Chris Kanaracus of Constellation Research Inc. wrote in a research note. “With ad revenue struggling, Twitter needs new revenue; it’s an open question as to whether premium APIs will generate it quickly, with the answer coming down to awareness, price point, perceived value, and the level of trust between Twitter and developers.”

Interest in the new offering was greeted with a “meh” by Twitter shareholders. Shares traded down less than 1 percent Tuesday, roughly in line with New York Stock Exchange composite index, which was also down a fraction.

Image: Sketchport

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