As a side note this is reason I've always believed building an business/app of any importance on-top of another site is just crazy. You're at their mercy and there's nothing you can ever do to stop them shutting you out.

Every business is built on other businesses. In the 1800s if you wanted distribution you had to play ball with the railroad barons.

This is just the 21st century equivalent.

Likewise, if you're building a destination website you're dependent on Google, email spam lists (don't get blacklisted!), browser vendors (MSFT and ESPN once conspired to make espn.com for IE-only), and even ISPs (see: Net Neutrality).

The risks are higher on Facebook and Twitter, but the upside is also higher. For example, I launched a Facebook application late last week and it already has 500k users. That kind of distribution is hard to get elsewhere.

There is a difference between those early dependence and Twitter. Twitter is still young, it's uncertain, and worst it's future is really unpredictable because it doesn't even have a business model to generate revenue yet.

Building on top of a business is sensible when you are depending on something that's been there for a while, know it's dependable and have a reputation. This twitter does not have.

If the same service as Twitter was provided by Google, Amazon or even Microsoft, you know it's backed by something solid.

Like I said: risk and reward. From the article it's clear that Twitter was a big benefit to his company. It became the #2 referrer after Google. Given the network effect inherent in Twitter, I bet it would become #1 over time.

That's why he's so upset that Twitter cut him off.

So, yes, building on Twitter is riskier. Building on Facebook is riskier. But as distribution channels they have huge upside.

If the risk is too high don't build and wait for the channels to become more mature.

It isn't wise to depend on it for your livelihood, but in this case he wasn't. He invested some time in it and reaped benefits. It may well have been a profitable investment.

I agree. That's what sucks about our dependency on Google too. Most Internet businesses are dependent on them and they can decide to remove you from the index as quickly as Twitter disabled the StatTweet accounts. Twitter effectively removed me from their index.

There is a difference between depending on Google and depending on Twitter.

Google is a multi faceted business, they have a good revenue model, have money, and are a proven company. Depending on them isn't crazy.

What's crazy is depending on Twitter, it's new, still have no solid revenue model to make money and sustain, in simple it's a single egg in the basket.

Google is just as fickle. If Google doesn't like the links on your web pages you get PageRank slapped. If your Google Ad Words don't get enough clicks they pull your Ad Words ads. If Google doesn't like your web site they kill your Ad Sense account and don't bother paying you for ads already delivered. All of these penalties are final and without appeal.

Don't trust the cloud. Appreciate its gifts but don't expect it will always be so.

The penalties from Google aren't final. If you do black hat SEO stuff and get depageranked, and then clean up your site, then over time you will get back into the index. That said, it's certainly better if you don't have to rely on anyone else.

At the same time, that site might be creating business opportunities that wouldn't otherwise exist.

And almost any business will be dependant, to some extent, on others. It's a question of how many of your dependencies are irreplaceable, and how likely they are to shut you out.

See for example http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/outage-10-08.html - they went down and lost all their data because the hosting company had a fight with the people who owned the building where the servers were kept. (Including backups, which made the host irreplaceable - with offsite backups, that wouldn't have been the case.)

Building on a site like twitter might increase the risk of being cut off on a whim, but it probably decreases the risk of competitors.

I definitely agree especially at this point that Twitter is barely out of beta, the growth is enormous and the pressure is intense on the staff.

I think Twitter here is making the correct decision.

I know it isn't happy for you, RobbieStats, but the ramifications for them, whether you are breaking the law, or they are through allowing you to do it, are tremendously not fun. As a business they need to err on the side of caution. Look what Youtube went through with Viacom and some other content creators.

Also, I think your article says that to have a case against you for trademark infringement, they have to go after "everyone" who infringes, but I don't believe that is true, I think they only have to defend it, but i don't know exactly what that means or the extent to which it must be defended to be defended at all.

Also sports franchises are pretty ruthless. They will sue you in court and they will sue Twitter in court and they will win or it will cost you and twitter a lot of money and it's just not worth it.

Also, I believe the actual numbers are owned by the industry as well. You have to have written permission to reprint the statistics. If I remember correctly, according to the copyright blurb at the beginning of games, techincally, you aren't even supposed to talk about the game after the game!

It's crazy, but that's what happens when there's a lot of money at stake, people get crazy...

You're wrong about the stats of the game. NBA v. Motorola cleared up that stats - even real-time stats - are not an exhibition of the game and can be freely disseminated as they are reports of factual occurrences. First useful Google hit: http://lsolum.typepad.com/copyfutures/2004/09/several_of_my_... The sports leagues' disclaimers are empty nothingness.

IANAL, but I've been working on 1st Amendment stuff as a layperson since 1997.

Actually I don't think this issue is clear legally. In NBA v. Motorola it was taken into account that Stats Inc gathered the statistics themselves which is not the case here. Plus at least in some jurisdictions there is the "hot news" doctrine that protects breaking news even though it is a fact. So the disclaimers are not empty nothingness, it is still a legal grey area.

e.g.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/the-ap-hot-news-and...

Right or wrong, for Twitter it's not even worth the risk or effort to test if that is true or not. Google/YouTube operates the same way: killing the account and taking the PR griping is cheaper than paying lawyers to sort it out.

Thanks for pointing that out!

Without warning Twitter shuts down... 650 accounts controlled by the same people.

You don't say.

"Mass account creation - Ok, they got me on this one."

Yes, they did have you on that one. Thanks for playing.

Imo, There is a valid reason for 650 accounts. Plus twitter is interesting because of 3rd party apps, so they should be responsive with support emails.

They definitely should be more responsive, their customer service department needs to be massively upsized. And a valid reason for 650 accounts is still invalidated by the fact that it goes directly against their TOS.

Against the letter, but not against the intention. As with the law, TOS's necessarily have shortcomings, because they cannot possibly cover all circumstances of every individual case. It would be nice if they didn't just flaunt the letter of the TOS in his face, but would explain why they do not want users like him. That would be a fair warning to others. As it stands, it's anyones guess what is and what is not allowed.

You want a massively upsized CS department and an absence of hard-and-fast rules enforced evenhandedly throughout the CS reps. This is "not a combo".

As it stands, it's anyones guess what is and what is not allowed.

See, right now, everyone knows what is not allowed: 650 accounts? Not allowed. Its written right in the TOS.

With the massively increased CS department making individual decisions in an arbitrary fashion, it would be like "650 accounts? Not allowed, unless you're really a cool tech demo and drew Mary out of the pool, because she's a softie."

Obviously a way for Twitter to make money would allow developers to pay to create mass accounts for these types of utilities.

Copyright is a different ball-game!

yeah, no.

Because an account is some precious commodity?

If it weren't, would we be having this discussion? Seems that you want it both ways, depending on whether you're discussing Twitter's obligations to you or your obligations to Twitter.

Account is a precious commodity, account name generally not, unless the intent is to squat.

I'm curious: did you at any point contact Twitter for their blessing (of your 650 accounts for this particular use)? I meant, before they started suspending your accounts? Or even before you created the accounts?

Yes, I contacted their bizdev email alias back in November. I got no response.

Twitter is very open with how they like and don't like their system to be used. They are the most open company I can think of with their API. I can guarantee this wouldn't come as a surprise to the service maker. This is coming from someone who makes an application that heavily uses twitter.

Aside from that Twitter's API is very unreliable. I wouldn't recommend putting Twitter API anywhere near the center of anyone's business plan. Again the lesson is: don't trust the cloud.

In addition to the multiple accounts which break TOC, it might also be a direction in which they want to go with their "secret business models." This might be loosely supported by the trending topics added to the user pages, but this is largely due to my speculation.

I thought the secret was that there is no business model. :)

And that my friends is why a business should never have all its eggs in one basket or platform if you will

They have blocked my friends @f1 account too. http://veetrag.net/2009/05/04/twitter-suspends-f1/

Since they post odds, this may be more about the wire wager act, which prohibits interstate transmission of sports gambling information.

Perhaps you should deal with the API staff and not the support staff. You're probably familiar with the dev list, right? Try contacting Doug Williams on this.