How Hootsuite and Twitter developed their “bro code”



Contributing Writer
Photo: Shadows of the Past Credit: Hillary Gracier


Twitter has been a little selfish lately.  Last week they added Tumblr to their list of exes (joining Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram among others) and there are many more break-ups on the horizon.

One company that seems to still have Twitter’s favor is HootSuite.  Their partnership offers valuable insight about what types of third-party providers will continue to be able to tap into the Twitter API.

What is the qualitative difference between Twitter’s left and right quadrants?

In his most recent post on the Twitter developer’s blog, Michael Sippey establishes criteria for most favored nation status with Twitter.  Sippey introduces a four-quadrant scenario analysis where analysis vs. engagement is plotted against businesses vs. consumers.   Sippey identifies the upper right quadrant (consumer tools used for engaging Twitter’s content) as the content they are targeting to ramp down access to.  Here’s how he describes the sinister upper right hand quadrant:

“In the upper right-hand quadrant are services that enable users to interact with Tweets, like the Tweet curation service Storify or the Tweet discovery site Favstar.fm. 
That upper-right quadrant also includes, of course, “traditional” Twitter clients like Tweetbot and Echofon. Nearly eighteen months ago, we gave developers guidance that they should not build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.” And to reiterate what I wrote in my last post, that guidance continues to apply today.”

The Twitter Quadrants of Legend

The Twitter Quadrants of Legend

Yet in the case of freemium-based  HootSuite, most of their users fall into the upper right hand quadrant proving the perfect foil for Twitter’s intentions.  HootSuite should probably fall squarely into the upper right hand quadrant, yet their presence in the upper left-hand quadrant (businesses engaging on Twitter) makes them a valued partner.  It reminds me of something…..

The part of Twitter will be played by Cuba Gooding, Jr. (Tom Cruise as HootSuite)

TechCrunch and AllTwitter both report that Twitter is now leveraging HootSuite to promote their advertising tools.  30,000 HootSuite Pro users will receive $100 in credits for Twitter advertising.  Why do companies such as Radian6 and HootSuite get a pass for replicating the user experience while tools like Echofon and Storify don’t?  Because they have a qualified user base with money to burn on advertising.

In other words, the delivery of a consistent Twitter experience must be coupled with the delivery of an advertising experience.  The delivery of a tailored tool is contingent upon creating the advertising experience.

It’s not a great position to take for users or developers, but give them credit.  At least Twitter is being transparent about their new pay-to-play model.

 

Jim Dougherty

Jim Dougherty

Writer and chief of miscellany at leaderswest.com

I aspire to give people something to think about rather than tell them what to do. My favorite Google Alert is “social media research,” I am increasingly compelled by Gen Z, and I appreciate good writers agnostic of where they write. At one time I was Kred’s 12th most influential social media blogger and Klout’s most influential person on the topic of David Hasselhoff. Transplant from Seattle living in Cincinnati. Haven’t entirely adopted the local sports teams yet.

Jim Dougherty

@jimdougherty

Writer about social media and tech at Leaders West, I also tweet as @leaderswest.

Infographic: How to optimize photos for Facebook’s News Feed http://t.co/6OkhbTRkb0 – 10 hours ago

Jim Dougherty

Jim Dougherty

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  • http://www.facebook.com/hootclub HootClub Host

    Thanks for sharing Jim. I personally loved the Jerry Maguire metaphor (maybe because it’s one of my favorite movies)! We’re excited about partnering up with our friends from down south, so far our users are really excited to experiment with the $100 credit as well.

    Hoot on!

    -HootSuite Community

  • jimdougherty

    Thanks for the comment! With Google Plus integration and now the strengthened partnership with Twitter – what a phenomenal job HootSuite has done to thrive when other third-party apps are being marginalized! Appreciate you reading and commenting!

  • http://www.proservicesks.com Frank Woodman Jr

    Your article is much appreciated and taken with the comments made by Michael Sippey I feel better about HootSuite’s ability to stay in Twitters good graces. And I do hope that is the case as HootSuite is my Twitter interface of choice. And it’s been a little nerve racking to watch as more and more services are denied access by Twitter.

    It would seem to me that a better way to hand this could have been worked out by Twitter and in the end I can’t see how shutting down existing services is good for Twitter and of course it’s been disaster for those companies caught in Twitters cross hairs.

    But be that as it may it sounds like Hootsuite and Twitter have worked it out between them. So with fingers crossed I’ll be watching and hoping that things don’t change between them.

  • http://cirquedumot.com/new-readers/ Susan Silver

    Just like my journalism teacher taught me, if you want to know someone’s motivations in a story look for the $$$. Good job with the analysis on this one.

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