Twitter Email Notifier TwitApps Heading To Deadpool. Code To Live On In Open-Source

Screen shot 2009-09-17 at 3.53.18 PMAs the current hot platform of choice for a lot of developers, we’re not seeing too many Twitter apps just yet in the Deadpool. But one, TwitApps, will hit it tomorrow, the developer is notifying users.

The service was a useful one that allowed you to get an automated email with all your @replies and follower notifications from Twitter. But it would appear that the developer simply got fed up trying to build a new version while continuing to “fire-fight problems” with Twitter’s API. Here’s the core part of the developer’s statement:

I love Twitter and use it a lot, but I’m tired of developing for the API. It’s not that I don’t think the API team over there do a fantastic job, or that I think the API is bad, it’s a personal thing. It no longer excites me the way it once did, and this is part of the reason it’s taken a long time for me to get v2 finished, and it’s still not ready.

So I’ve decided to shut it down rather than continuing to fire-fight problems and pick away at the new version. I’d rather tell the several thousand users of the service have to find alternatives where the developers are more committed to it.

I’m sure I’ll continue to tinker with the Twitter API – I do find it fascinating, but that’s not the same as maintaining a quality product with users to answer to.

The good news is that the code behind TwitApps will live on as an open-source project. This means that anyone else will be free to build and maintain a new TwitApps themselves. The plan is to publish the code to a GitHub account after the site shuts down, tomorrow, September 18 (the emails will continue to run through the 25th).

The service had some 4,000+ users, who apparently have reached out to the developer en masse to try and get him to change his mind, but he says he won’t. So after tomorrow, no more TwitApps. Hopefully someone will use the code to build something similar.

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