Twitter’s Response To PeopleBrowsr Lawsuit: ‘This Is Contracts 101′

http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/28/twitter-responds-to-peoplebrowsr/

by busted • 14 years ago

55 20 14 years ago

jbwyme2• 14 years ago

It strikes me a little odd that twitter doesn't want to have a larger hand in their data distribution. Having some one else handle it seems like something a non-tech company would do. Scaling and automating the distribution to subscribers doesn't strike me as a problem twitter would have a hard time solving and I hardly doubt they need any one else to sell it for them from a marketing standpoint. What, from a business perspective, do you suppose is driving their decision to only work with three companies?

skrebbel• 14 years ago

Are you sure that Twitter is a tech company?

Firehed• 14 years ago

These days, Twitter seems to be a "let's piss everyone off, we're big enough that they can't do anything about it" company.

I've been a member since 01/2007 and have been developing against their API for nearly as long (though for what I imagine are rather obvious reasons, I haven't been near it recently). I've seen more fail whales than I could possibly count. I've sent 5000 tweets over the last nearly six years. I'm even listed as a contributor in the original O'Reilly book on Twitter API development.

I've seen it slowly become less and less useful and usable. I've watched them make their developers and contributing users hate them as they struggled to find a business model (who else remembers the #dickbar ?). I'm now watching them destroy their ecosystem as they try to execute on their chosen business model.

Twitter, I am disappoint.

jbwyme2• 14 years ago

For what Twitter is today, I'm sure they are. They are essentially the world's largest chat room except every participant gets to curate their own experience (plus it's all indexed). Maybe their revenue stream won't be directly a tech product but will certainly be the result of one.

Tyrannosaurs• 14 years ago

Surely Twitter is a content company enabled by tech? Their technology is easily replicated, the thing they have of value is the content.

Increasingly I think they're no more a tech company than say, Warner Brothers. Warners rely completely on tech for creating and distributing content but it's not ultimately what they produce which is of interest and / or value. Ditto Twitter.

InAnEmergency• 14 years ago

Last I heard, the firehose is something like 30MB/s of data. Maybe maintaining a pipe like that to a large number of subscribers is just not what Twitter wants to spend its time or money on.

abootstrapper3• 14 years ago

If Twitter hadn't been acting like a jerk to their developer community for the last 2 years, I would completely side with Twitter on this.

However, given Twitter's recent behavior of backpedalling on expectations they set for developing on their platform, and their disrespect for developers who've been cheerleading and building apps for them the last 6 years, I'm glad to see someone fight back the best they can. If for no other reason than to illustrate that they're acting like jerks. Unfortunately, given Twitter's response and hand waving dismissal, I don't think they received the message. They could have at least paid a little lip-service. Ya' know, act like they give a damn.

Humbug!

shantanubala2• 14 years ago

This lawsuit seems like crap, and it makes me feel really uncomfortable -- what if I don't have millions in VC funding? It basically means that a random person with enough resources can tie me down with a bogus lawsuit even if I have a legally-sound contract that is supposed to protect me.

I agree that Twitter backtracked on their API and platform, but a bogus lawsuit is the exact opposite of the right way to fight back. Even though App.net and others have their flaws, that is the "right" way: developers have to steal people's attention away from Twitter instead of going for a lawsuit that doesn't make sense.

carlisle_• 14 years ago

This is pretty much how I feel. In a word Twitter has been a jerk, but being a jerk isn't illegal.

joshAg2• 14 years ago

> It basically means that a random person with enough resources can tie me down with a bogus lawsuit even if I have a legally-sound contract that is supposed to protect me.

yes, that's pretty much the state of things in the US. Anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason; granted if someone files for something stupid it will almost certainly be laughed out of court immediately, but you will still have to spend time and money defending yourself from it.

And this is in no way limited to companies. You can be sued for asking the guy behind you in line to talk into his cellphone quieter. That'll almost certainly be dismissed with prejudice, but you'll still need to either research the law yourself or contact a lawyer to deal with that idiot.

abootstrapper3• 14 years ago

Meh. The schoolyard bully isn't getting my sympathy. PeopleBrowsr is doing little more than squirming in Twitter's grasp. It's not like there's some great injustice about their legal case. It's more like a last ditch attempt at trying to prevent getting their butt whooped. But don't loss heart, I'm sure Twitter will still give PeopleBrowsr a good beating.

mseebach• 14 years ago

I don't see how even deep and reasonable lack of sympathy for Twitter, and equally deep sympathy for PeopleBrowsr, has any bearing on Twitter's right to terminate a contract it has a clear right to terminate.

Unless Twitter is grossly misrepresenting the facts, PeopleBrowsr knew perfectly well what terms they were getting their access on. The contract expired 16 months ago and has been automatically renewed on a month-by-month basis, with a 30 days notice period. Twitter then gave notice.

abootstrapper3• 14 years ago

My feelings towards Twitter have absolutely no bearing on their contract with PeopleBrowsr. Of this I'm aware.

They might want to consider PR though. But, to be honest, I think they have considered it, and their position is "we don't care what the neck-beards think about us anymore, @katyperry is trending!"

So I'm a neck-beard and I take offense to this. It's practically what they want.

debacle• 14 years ago

The world is full of pricks, jerks, and assholes.

Taking sides in a legal battle based on which party dots their Is with little hearts, instead of based on logical arguments and legal precedent, is ignorant.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

Its an interesting twist, if you reason that part of Twitter's enterprise value is its Firehose data then unwinding these contracts is in Twitter's best interest. However I have experienced first hand problems with contracts written "pre-success" that didn't anticipate what success would look like. Depending on the players those have generally been amended amicably. On the other hand it does seem like it will damage Peoplebrowsr's product to lose access. Perhaps its just a money question?

lnanek2• 14 years ago

This happens especially a lot with companies that don't actually have and programmers on staff. Changing means of access means they basically have to buy their outsourced app all over again...

Twitter’s Response To PeopleBrowsr Lawsuit: ‘This Is Contracts 101′

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