Twitter is a social media network that allows people to post updates from all around the world. The world’s most powerful voices are on Twitter, but the reality remains that a vocal minority is still a minority and as such, they have failed to keep growing as much as their investors would love.
If they fail to grow, they cannot make money and they cannot fool everybody forever. Twitter is actually in trouble and they are trying to fix it somehow. Facebook won afterall.
Now, out of nowhere, pops up Meerkat, an app that allows you livestream whatever you are doing to your friends immediately through live video. The app is built to integrate closely with Twitter. Twitter is not cool with this because they just acquired a company, Periscope that wants to do something similar and therefore cuts off Meerkat’s access!
From a business point of view, I think it is a terrible move by Twitter. And Meerkat will grow stronger as rightly predicted by its optimistic Creator. What baffles me on the other hand is how clueless Twitter seems to be on this matter, I feel they should have learnt from their past that Twitter grew faster when it had a thriving developer ecosystem.
Businesses should stop thinking in a shallow and small minded way, only optimising for personal gains. The bigger way to go is by allowing others to thrive alongside you. Meerkat is not gunning for Twitter’s core product and the new Twitter acquisition that caused Twitter to revert Meerkat’s access, Periscope has not been judged to be a market hit yet. If I were Twitter CEO, I will allow Meerkat to keep growing and then I would acquire the company, simple! Rather than kill them off hoping my Periscope app will do better when I have no proof the Periscope app will ever fly.
If Twitter keeps cutting off apps like they just did to Meerkat, nobody will build anything on their API again. And an ignored API means no new toys for the end users and no new toys will lead to Twitter’s death. Can you imagine how boring your phone would be if Apple and Android Nation decided to lock up their devices, allowing ONLY Apple and Google staff to build all the apps? That is exactly what Twitter is trying to do.
Entrepreneurs, Creators and Businessmen working in this connected times must learn how to allow people piggyback off your own success and even learn to derive happiness from it.
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Watching The World
- If you have an iPhone you could check out Meerkat
- Ben Rubin, Meerkat creator explains what Meerkat is all about
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