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"While at the Chirp conference for Twitter developers, we ran into iPhone developer Brett MacLean, whose startup had been rightfully optimistic about their Twitter app \u2014 that is, until three days ago, when they got word that Twitter had acquired top iPhone app Tweetie and designated it the official Twitter app for iPhone.\nIn that move, Twitter lost a lot of the trust it had earned from developers working on its platform. These folks had built businesses around Twitter's APIs \u2014 a risk, to be sure. But even though they were working with another company's tech, these developers were given little information about Twitter's roadmap and future plans for features or native apps. Developers and entrepreneurs were truly caught off guard, as were their families and investors.\nAll the devs we've spoken to today reveal a mixture of optimism and nervousness about the future of Twitter apps. There will still be opportunity for Twitter apps to succeed, both as social applications and as businesses, but those opportunities will be fewer and only for the truly innovative. \nMacLean's startup, Tweet Agora, will continue to work on their product, but with a much closer eye on Twitter's roadmap as it's revealed. Developers will have to innovate in ways the folks at Twitter don't plan to \u2014 but they can't do that without knowing Twitter's plans. And that is exactly what's creating the tension between this much-loved platform and its army of third-party developers.\nStay tuned for the official response from Twitter platform director Ryan Sarver on how Twitter will handle roadmap disclosure.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFor more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/04/14/twitter-developers/>