A long, long time ago in a place not so far away Twitter was born. It was a golden age, full of text messages, retweets and #followfridays. But despite the simplistic and innovative breakthrough, chaos reigned in the mobile twitterverse.
In an attempt to help restore order, Jedi developer masters like Twittelator, Tweetie, Echofon and SimplyTweet emerged, helping to restore balance to the tweet.
For over a 1,000 geek generations, tweet developers were the guardians of twitter lists and hashtags. Before tweetageddon, and before Twitter bought Tweetie.
Flash forward to the present and developers are facing a nightmare. With Twitter HQ launching mobile apps upon Android and Blackberry (in order to help expand their growing empire), developers have to choose either extinction, or to embrace the dark side by embracing Facebook.
But there is a new hope, a way for developers to not only survive, but also thrive in the shadow of the new Twitter empire by simply embracing the way of the tweet–as well as 3 simple techniques.
Tweeting With The Stars
Even though Twitter HQ is proud of the technological terror that they’ve acquired, the power of Tweetie is insignificant next to the power of the tweet–especially if it comes from a celebrity.
With stars like Shaq (@the_real_shaq) embracing TweetGenius, @JessicaSimpson choosing UberTwitter, @TonyHawk embracing Twitdroid, and Taylor Swift (@TaylorSwift13) lovin’ up on Echofon, developers might attempt to squeeze out an endorsement (which could translate into millions of new users over night).
We may also see developers make premium celebrity branded themes in order to attract new followers upon their respective apps.
Since the official Twitter apps will probably maintain a neutral look (in order to appeal to the masses), developers should face little competition from Twitter HQ (at least in the realm of celebrity themes and layouts).
Building A Rebel Alliance
With over a 100 million citizens in the twitterverse (and growing), Twitter HQ is limited on how much customer support they can provide, relying mainly upon email and various tweet accounts (like @Twitter and @Spam) to communicate with their loyal subjects.
Developers could distinguish themselves from the corporate giant by providing phone support, as well as video support via Skype (the latter perhaps for premium users).
This may help developers build a mini rebel alliance amongst the masses of “twitter folk,” as well as encourage others to defect from the official apps (as some people may prefer a human voice over a digitalized message).
Never Underestimate The Power Of A Tweet Contest
In order to prevent mass defections, we may see developers attempt to hold daily competitions, a technique that has been (successfully) used by many companies (as one can tell from the numerous iPad giveaways).
Whether it’s giving away gift cards, promo t-shirts or even a brand new iPhone, contests may become the norm for developers, who could give out prizes to users based upon the number of total app tweets (example: 10,000 tweets via Seesmic could win a young padawan a shiny new Macbook, iPhone, etc.).
Return Of The Twitter Jedi’s?
Whether or not third party developers will be able to survive against the onslaught of official apps only time will reveal.
However, despite the reports of doom and gloom across the twitterverse, developers may not only survive the upcoming age of Tweetie–but also thrive as well.
(Image Credits: Star Wars image via George Lucas, Taylor Swift via Angela George)