Image via WikipediaRumor on the street is that Twitter is soon going to announce its own managed photosharing app, obviously being immensely sync able with Twitter, maybe even also integrated with the original microblogging service. Third-party photosharing services, like Twitpic and Yfrog, which were currently working closely to serve the needs of the large Twitter user base, are now seeing complete bad luck ahead, if the rumor is discovered to be true. Alexia Tsotsis, a technology reporter, informed TechCrunch this Sunday that “according to multiple sources, Twitter is on the verge on announcing its own built-in Twitpic competitor.” She also anticipated that “photosharing is the next logical step of Twitter expanding its in-app experience. It’s basically grabbing at low-hanging fruit.”
Image via CrunchBaseThe rumors were furthermore confused with reality when Liz Gannes, a writer of a technology blog, All Things D, also supported the rumors and stated that Twitter is expectedly going to reveal its plans for the photosharing service by this week at the D9 conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. This Wednesday at the conference, the C.E.O. of Twitter, Dick Costolo, has personally planned to speak publically. Gannes stated in her article that “Currently, Twitter users who wish to post photos in their tweets must host them elsewhere, with popular options including Twitpic, Yfrog, Instagram and Flickr. Users then include links to the photos within their tweets. Many Twitter clients, including those developed by the company, use the links to go fetch the images and display them inline. But the process could certainly be smoother.”
Companies like Twitpic and ImageShack, owner of Yfrog, have their entire business and identity on risk, as they have been running an extremely profitable business by selling more and more ads with the image they display through tweets. Moreover Tsotsis also mentioned that “It’s only natural that [Twitter] would spend more resources on photosharing, especially considering how much money is being poured into the white hot space and that images were the crux of the success of competitor Facebook.” Gizmodo published an article by Kelly Hodgkin, their chief writer, which affirmed that there is “no word on what will happen to TwitPic and Yfrog support if Twitter develops it own solution. We would like to think Twitter would be open to any service, but the company has become increasingly anti-competitive.”
While previously in March, All Things D had already said that “Twitter…told developers explicitly that they should stop making third-party clients, citing repeated privacy policy violations and an inconsistent user experience.”
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