14 DAY TRIAL // Twitter's been getting a lot of flak about its API changes and developers are not happy. But the company says it's very happy to have developers work on top of the Twitter API. The caveat being that, it's just as long as they don't do anything that threatens Twitter's revenue in any way.
What Twitter wants is developers building "card" apps, i.e. apps that run inside Twitter and inside tweets in fact. This ensures that people stay on the site and see the ads.
While cards are getting a bad rep since their introduction was coupled with the less popular changes to the API policy, the idea is actually compelling.
It's a way for tweets to retain their brevity while also including a lot more info than ever before.
Card apps can be anything really, but the most common use case is for adding context to a shared link, the title of an article and a few sentences from it, for example.
Twitter is boasting that there are now 2,000 apps built on the cards API, which is not a bad number, though the feature is still in its early days.
"Today there are more than 2,000 ways to bring more interactive and engaging Tweets to your stream –– on twitter.com, as well as Twitter for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry," Twitter explained.
"When you click a Tweet that contains a link to a partner site, the Tweet will expand, and you'll be able to see more content directly within it. Here are some examples; we're working to offer even more options," it added.
Twitter goes on to list some of the apps built on the platform, like the Amazon app which provides product previews, or the SoundCloud app that enables you to listen to songs shared and even "like" them on Twitter.com or in the official apps.