Twitter cuts links with LinkedIn
As social media platforms compete for user attention and activity, it would appear some of the players are opting to lessen their social connectivity as Twitter loosens its ties with LinkedIn.
On Friday LinkedIn announced, via a blog post, that tweets would no longer automatically sync with LinkedIn accounts. Prior to the announcement users could choose to either have all tweets directly posted to their LinkedIn profile, or simply those tagged with #in or #li.
Michael Sippey, who runs the consumer product team at Twitter, published a blog outlining the company’s intention to “build engaging experiences into Twitter” and allow “developers to be able to build applications that run within Tweets.”
Developers however are not happy with the latest move with one developer, Aaron White, blogging, “I’m done developing for Twitter…They’ve demonstrated not once to me, but twice, that they have no desire to work with developers, but rather antagonize them as they see fit.”
Industry observers and commentators see the announcement as an effort by Twitter to encourage users to spend more time in the site rather than using it as a portal to other sites. Users, originally confined to the 140 character text-only service,are now able to embed video and photo content from various sites around the web and the latest addition, Twitter Cards, displays headlines, photos, bylines and teaser blurbs for content around the web.
According to Ryan Roslansky, head of content products at LinkedIn, the end of the two-and-a-half-year partnership between the two companies has been amicable and users will still be able to post to Twitter from their LinkedIn profile.
