14 DAY TRIAL // When it comes to Twitter, all it takes is a tweet to send everyone wild with speculation and 'analyses.' The latest example is a tweet from Twitter engineer Alex Payne, which would indicate that Twitter.com might be getting some features that would make it more competitive with third-party Twitter clients. The tweet holds some meaning to it and it may indicate that Twitter is focusing more on the website, but from this to speculation that third-party developers should be abandoning ship there's a bit of a stretch.
Here's what Payne said, specifically, "If you had some of the nifty site features that we Twitter employees have, you might not want to use a desktop client. (You will soon.)" The tweet seems to be gone now. This may sound like a slightly controversial thing to say, especially for a company that treasures its outside developers and that, in fact, relies on them extensively.
But there's really not that much to it. Twitter has been integrating features on the site that were first developed by outside parties for a while now and no one expected that to stop. And, even if Twitter does pick up the pace and shortens the gap, it's still not going to be a real alternative for any serious Twitter user.
Later, after the deluge of controversial 'opinions' had already started, tweets from the Twitter developer were intended to clarify the situation and assure developers that Twitter wasn't cutting them short. For one, everything Twitter will build for the site uses functionality already available through the API.
That being said, even after the latest wave of new features and updates, Twitter.com is still in need of some enhanced functionality, so seeing that Twitter is using some of that $150 million it got in funding so far to improve the web experience is a good thing. And, of course, having more people using the site bodes well for Twitter's bottom line after the much-talked-about Twitter ads roll out.