The Issue With APIs and Third-Party Apps

Early this morning Orli Yakuel who runs the Go2Web20 startup directory had all of her direct messages (aka private messages) on Twitter exposed to her 600+ followers. Michael Arrington has a good recap of the issue on Techcrunch. The instant that I read about this trouble I thought it could be one of the large number of third-party apps built on Twitter's API. Arrington has since updated his recap to note that it looks like it was a third-party app, GroupTweet that caused the direct messages to be shown to the public.

In this case, everyone seemed to immediately blame Twitter for the issue. As more platforms (Twitter is a platform) launch and more applications are built on top (e.g. Twhirl, FriendFeed, GroupTweet, etc.), we will need to determine methods and techniques to determine when the issues are with the platform and when they are with the application. By default, that isn't an easy proposition.

Furthering the issue and making it more complex is the issue of installation and updates. For example, you install x app to work with Twitter today. You read the terms and are satisfied so you install. A couple of weeks go by and you are bored with it so you leave and move on to the next one. When the first app updates, you may get hit with the updates and not even remember that you installed the first app and blame the issue on the second app or the platform. See how complicated this can get? Where's Columbo when you need him!

Here's a startup idea: a tracker for Web apps that you've installed and their current status (installed, active, not active, deleted, etc.)

Of course with all of the issues Twitter has faced, I can see why the immediate blame went to them.