23% Of Tweets Are Posted Via Third-Party Clients

Sites include tweedeck.com , Twitter.com . Published on August 9th, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

Twitter isn’t saying it aloud but it looks like there is a move to kill off third-party apps and news that only around 23% of tweets emanate from such apps is a big indicator that Twitter wants to bring things back in house.

The study into how the twitter ecosystem is setup was conducted by developer Benjamin Mayo and he found that if Twitter were to shut off access to its platform from third-party apps it wouldn’t hurt the overall user experience of its active members.

Mayo found that the 77% of tweets which emanate from Twitter’s first-party or native apps is enough to sustain interaction on the platform. In recent years Twitter has opened up the platform to advertisers and many analyzing the situation feel that the laissez-faire approach to API access may hurt more than benefit Twitter.

Of coursed shutting down third-party apps wouldn’t be about switching off API access; the 23% of tweets represents actual people. These people love their apps like Tweetdeck which is used by thousands. Shutting down third-party platforms like Tweetdeck would no doubt anger these users and cause a backlash.

At some stage though, these apps will find themselves out in the cold so developers had better start making plans.

Do you think Twitter will eventually kill off third-party apps? Share your thoughts with us below.