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Businesses Social Networks Television Twitter

Twitter Is Killing Several of Its TV Apps, Too (techcrunch.com) 29

Twitter is shutting down its TV apps on Roku, Android TV and Xbox starting on May 24, the company announced this morning. From a report: The news of the apps' closure comes at a time when Twitter is now trying to steer its users to its first-party mobile apps and its desktop website by killing off apps used by a minority of its user base -- like the Twitter for Mac app it shut down earlier this year. And more recently, it has attempted to kill off popular third-party Mac apps with a series of unfriendly API changes.

It's unclear why this has become Twitter's agenda. While it can be a burden for a company to support a broader ecosystem of apps where some only have a niche audience, in some cases those "niche" users are also the most influential and heavy users. And arguably, anyone launching Twitter's app on their TV must be a die-hard user -- because who is really watching that much Twitter on their TV?

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Twitter Is Killing Several of Its TV Apps, Too

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  • Who cares? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I have far more important things to do than concern myself with what you peons do on Twitter and Facebook. Let's have some real news for once, not just crap about Twitter that appeals to millennial simpletons.

    - gweihir

  • ...when everything Twitter is finally killed off. They are a cancer on the global subconsciousness.

    mnem
    Modding me down won't make this any less true.

  • Blocking Twitter on WebTVs? You mean -- they're trying to finally block Trump?
  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @12:07PM (#56654024)

    I still will probably use Twitter from time to time, but I have to say there has never been a better time for some kind of Twitter alternative to come along... seriously thinking of moving to the Mastodon project [joinmastodon.org] regardless of no-one else on earth being there. It's not like I cared if people what I thought anyway... :-)

  • by Anonymous Coward

    "While it can be a burden for a company to support a broader ecosystem of apps where some only have a niche audience, in some cases those "niche" users are also the most influential and heavy users. And arguably, anyone launching Twitter's app on their TV must be a die-hard user -- because who is really watching that much Twitter on their TV?"

    Except that i think that someone who is really that "influential" on twitter already has the app on a mobile device as well as has that device nearby. This article is

  • by desdinova 216 ( 2000908 ) on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @12:12PM (#56654048)
    many of the other apps don't show ads? I'm surprised the desktop site doesn't block you if you're running adblockers (great, I'm probably going summon APK
  • MURDERERS! Oh, wait, shutting down? You wrote they were killing them, you lying bastards. *sigh*

  • And arguably, anyone launching Twitter's app on their TV must be a die-hard user -- because who is really watching that much Twitter on their TV?

    No one. That's why they are shutting it down. The amount of users utilizing the TV app is probably too low to justify the expense of maintaining it.

  • A long time ago, I programmed an application that relied on the Twitter API. For a long time, the Twitter API was a reliable way of building an application that utilized Twitter. I'd even argue that this contributed to Twitter's growth: People could third party applications with great new features to interact with Twitter instead of just the official application.

    All was good for awhile, but then Twitter not only changed the API (which is to be expected from time to time) but radically reduced the amount of

    • by Hadlock ( 143607 )

      The lack of twitter-capable tools is the #1 reason why I don't use the service. At best the main twitter app is a sidecar to the facebook constellation of apps. The only reason I use twitter is to complain to companies about poor service. Since Twitter doesn't integrate with anything, I never login to check anything. Since I use the app perhaps once a month at best I bet they still count me as an "engaged user".

  • ...causing millions of readers to immediately ask, "Twitter has a tv app?"

"Oh what wouldn't I give to be spat at in the face..." -- a prisoner in "Life of Brian"

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