Originally posted on PandoDaily:
An era is ending.
There was a time when many tech companies would allow outside developers to make applications based on a larger service. Developers rushed at the opportunity and made independent apps for Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and other social tools. But, over the last few years, these companies have stopped supporting this software.
Twitter was among the first to clamp down on that independent software. The company announced in 2012 that it would limit the number of users an application modeled after its official software - which meant the majority of consumer-focused Twitter software - in an effort to bring more consumers onto the apps it owned and therefore had complete control over.
That decision has led to mixed results. Some third-party applications have survived the rule change; others haven't. But the end result is still a significant decrease in the size of the Twitter app ecosystem, which is...
