MG earlier wrote a post about Twitter’s rules regarding its trademarks, logos and so on.
Here’s what struck me, going over the guidelines:
Naming your Application or Product, Applying for a Domain
Do: Use Tweet in the name of your application only if it is designed to be used exclusively with the Twitter platform.
Don’t: Use Tweet in the name of your application if used with any other platform.
The reason why this struck me as odd is because one of the most popular desktop and mobile applications with the word ‘tweet’ in its name is TweetDeck, which comes in both native desktop and mobile client forms (Adobe AIR, iOS and Android).
Is TweetDeck “designed to be used exclusively with the Twitter platform”? Well, definitely not.
TweetDeck enables people to interact with their Twitter friends via a unique interface with lots of bells and whistles, but it does much more than that. To clarify, the application boasts support for platforms such as Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, MySpace and Google Buzz.
That’s five major offenses to Twitter’s naming rules right there. Question is: does Twitter plan to effectively enforce these guidelines and lay down the law for TweetDeck (and co)?
I’ve requested a comment from Twitter and will update when I hear back from them.
Update: Twitter responds briefly: “case by case basis”, suggesting TweetDeck has nothing to worry about. The startup’s founder, Iain Dodsworth, echoed that sentiment on Twitter.