Tweepi

(Not a review, just what you need to know)

It's pretty sad to see that Tweepi fell victim to the changes Twitter (now going by X) has made recently. They were a solid companion app to Twiends. We provided the growth and they provided the management.

We were kind of rivals when it came to showing up in search results, but we didn't really offer the same things. They started out in 2009, just like us, making them one of the original apps in this area.

So What Happened?

Sadly, Tweepi had to stop because of new rules from Twitter about using its API. Starting in April 2023, Twitter began asking for a lot of money from apps to use its data. The big issue was a 500k yearly fee for apps that wanted to read or study tweets.

Though there were cheaper options, they didn't really work for commercial apps. For Tweepi, this new fee was too much to handle. The last thing we heard was that they were giving money back to their customers and closing down.

Was the App All Good?

Yes, but it wasn't perfect. Some people used the app to spam or to quickly churn followers, which wasn't what the creators had in mind. But most people used it the right way.

Why Did Elon Do This?

Elon Musk is feeling the heat to make Twitter earn more money after he spent a lot to buy it. He's thinking of moving towards a model where users subscribe, focusing less on ads and more on content creators.

It's a big shift and it's creating a lot of changes at a technical level. Now, many apps that were once seen as helpful are being seen as too costly, forcing many to change a lot or shut down.

What's an API Anyway?

If you're wondering, an API, or Application Programming Interface, is a tool that lets different apps talk to each other. For Twitter, its API lets other apps or websites use its data and features. This could mean a news website showing recent tweets or an app allowing you to tweet directly from it. It helps Twitter offer more features and services by letting other software interact with it in different ways.