Since Twitter acquired Tweetie and rolled out an official iPhone client, the company has focused more and more on improving the mobile experience across all smartphone platforms.
Twitter CEO Ev Williams wrote just now on the company blog that mobile usage of the site has gone up 62% in just over four months, and 16% of all new Twitter users are starting out on mobile devices as opposed to web signups (this number is up from just 5% earlier this year).
In the days before Twitter started issuing official apps on a platform-by-platform basis, the company wasn’t seeing the kind of mobile adoption it had hoped for. Williams wrote, “Even though there was a plethora of third-party Twitter apps, people were having trouble finding and selecting one because none were called ‘Twitter.’ This kept them from using Twitter at all.”
The company adopted a new strategy for mobile; rather than leaving all the mobile app development to third parties, Twitter decided to consolidate efforts. In the short term, this caused some consternation for third-party devs; however, looking at Twitter’s stats, it’s clear the company did the right thing for its shareholders and bottom line.
Twitter acquired Tweetie in May this year; this was our first indication that it would be creating and distributing its own mobile apps for a change.
Tweetie was revamped and renamed Twitter for iPhone in May. A BlackBerry app was released in April, and the company’s official Android Twitter app was released later the same month.
In the days before Twitter started issuing official apps on a platform-by-platform basis, the company wasn’t seeing the kind of mobile adoption it had hoped for. Williams wrote, “Even though there was a plethora of third-party Twitter apps, people were having trouble finding and selecting one because none were called ‘Twitter.’ This kept them from using Twitter at all.”
The company adopted a new strategy for mobile; rather than leaving all the mobile app development to third parties, Twitter decided to consolidate efforts. In the short term, this caused some consternation for third-party devs; however, looking at Twitter’s stats, it’s clear the company did the right thing for its shareholders and bottom line.
Twitter acquired Tweetie in May this year; this was our first indication that it would be creating and distributing its own mobile apps for a change.
Tweetie was revamped and renamed Twitter for iPhone in May. A BlackBerry app was released in April, and the company’s official Android Twitter app was released later the same month.
Twitter is also seeing strong growth in its mobile site and SMS service, and Williams notes that third-party apps such as TweetDeck continue to be valuable and important parts of the Twitter mobile landscape.
And as for the long tail, Williams writes: “There are a tremendous number of other apps that people are using, not necessarily as their main Twitter client, but as an alternative way to create or view Tweets. The number of registered OAuth applications is now at almost 300,000 — this number has nearly tripled since Chirp [Twitter's developer conference, which was held in April in San Francisco].”
And as for the long tail, Williams writes: “There are a tremendous number of other apps that people are using, not necessarily as their main Twitter client, but as an alternative way to create or view Tweets. The number of registered OAuth applications is now at almost 300,000 — this number has nearly tripled since Chirp [Twitter's developer conference, which was held in April in San Francisco].”
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