Twitter looks set to give its web interface a serious overhaul, at least according to a flurry of tweets from Twitter engineer Alex Payne and rumour mongering from perennial web big mouth Jason Calacanis.
Payne tweeted to boast about features being tested internally: “If you had some of the nifty features we Twitter employees have, you might not want to use a desktop client. (You will soon).”
The brashness of Payne’s tweet made third party developers worry and got us thinking. There are already fairly nifty web interfaces that can compete with desktop apps like Tweetdeck, there’s Brizzly and Seesmic web version for a start.
Having thrown the cat amongst the third-party pigeons, Payne swiftly followed his tweet with some clarifications: “Uh everything I like that’s on the employees-only beta site is actually *built* on public API methods we’ve already given to developers.”
He went on to say that what he really meant was “[Twitter’s] web client team is building cool stuff. It’s going to inspire desktop app developers. Same data, new perspectives.”
However, over on Leo Laporte’s venerable weekly tech podcast, This Week In Tech, web rumour monger Jason Calacanis (who was behind an infamous Apple iPad rumour), claimed that Twitter boss Evan Williams desperately wants the site to compete more with third party apps and even make its own stripped-back official app available.
Do you think Twitter should perk up its web interface? And is there room for another Twitter app in the world? Oh and make sure you follow Electricpig on Twitter.
Due TBC | £TBC | Twitter (via Techcrunch | TWIT )
