[heinel]

Is it just me but isn't it a bit too early to say Twitter is trying to wall itself in? Are they taking down the APIs?

From what I can see here they just want Twitter.com to be a viable (and profitable) business. Why wouldn't anyone want that? In fact, I think it's about time Twitter finally stepped up to define just what kind of a service Twitter really is about. If anything it would be a nice stepping stone to introduce to people who don't yet get it's structure to try it out.

Yes, there are third-party developers who have created their own platforms and in a sense helped define the medium. There are many such choices, but really many of the functions they provide overlap. Do we really need that many different Twitter clients with minute differences? If Twitter were to provide the basic functions itself, then I'd say that this is a good time for third-party developers to think up new ways to diversify themselves. Wasn't there just not so long ago someone posted a HTML5 tower defense game up here that has a Twitter scoreboard? Why not expand on that?