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Developers who are working on Twitter-related projects may want to reconsider how they approach some fairly major aspects of the ventures. Twitter’s leaders seem to be growing tired of people mimicking the company’s way of doing things.
A third-party developer who’s remained anonymous recently received an email from a Twitter employee. According to Robin Wauters, it (in part) read, “Twitter, Inc is uncomfortable with the use of the word Tweet (our trademark) and the similarity in your UI and our own.”
Wauters then managed to contact Biz Stone, Twitter’s cofounder, and Stone wrote, “[W]e encourage developers of new applications and services built using Twitter APIs to invent original branding for their projects rather than use our marks, logos, or look and feel. This approach leaves room for applications to evolve as they grow and it avoids potential confusion down the line.”
But at the same time, Stone then added, “We have healthy relationships with existing developers who sometimes include Twitter logos, marks, or look and feel in their applications and services. We’ll continue to work together in a fair and flexible way to ensure success for Twitter, developers, and everyone who uses these services.”
So if you already have a Twitter app of some sort on the market, you probably won’t be hit with a lawsuit in the next few days. Just try to be original if any of your projects remain in the pipeline. It might be that, as Twitter becomes more and more of a “real” company (see its verified accounts program, its usefulness during the Iranian election controversy, etc.), its leaders will become more interested in protecting the brand.
Topics: Web Development
