What is Twitter planning? Pt. 2
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's Ponder This
It seems like Twitter is planning to come up with some major improvements. A few days ago every user was asked (again) for their data and permission to use their email addresses to find them (read more).
Now, Alex Payne, who's one of the Twitter engineers tweeted some hints on new features.
Those tweets and the knowledge that Twitter hired two former LinkedIn developers, who were responsible for the LinkedIn iPhone app, leave room for speculation.
While the number of tweets/users is increasing, the user traffic is not. Many people don't use the website, but desktop and mobile clients. So, in my opinion Twitter will start a battle on two different battlefields.
1.) They're finally trying to enter the mobile app segment. The mobile web Twitter version is in fact good but doesn't provide all the features that Tweetie, Tweetdeck, etc. have. If you think about it, it's the next logical step. Twitter provides APIs they don't use (e.g. geolocation). Why are they developing them if they're not planning to use them in their own products. I think we can expect an iPhone/Android app or maybe a completely revised mobile web version soon.
2.) The upcoming Twitter ads are probably build around the search. But to make it a success users have to use that search instead of their desktop clients. So we're in for some website improvements as well. I'm not quite sure what it will be. They will definitely upgrade the user search (via email / maybe location based) and potentially they will also integrate some external goodies directly into the page, supposably features like TwitPic, bit.ly, etc.
But maybe I'm just totally on the wrong track. Let's wait and see.