Rumor: Twitter tools should help developers make money

Twitter is set to release a set of tools for developers on Wednesday to help them find bugs and make money. The ‘token limit’ for Twitter apps, denounced by developers, appears to be being enforced.

Twitter has not yet announced the new tools itself, but the usually reliable business newspaper The Wall Street Journal reports on the tools that would have been given the joint name Fabric. The tools would not be aimed specifically at creating services for Twitter, but at creating apps in general.

According to the business newspaper, it is a “peace offering” by Twitter for developers. Many developers created services for the social medium, but after Twitter unexpectedly changed course and tightened the reins in 2012, Twitter got a bad name among developers. Many developers made consumer Twitter apps like Tweetbot, but others also had services running on it, such as Twitpic, which is soon to be discontinued, and URL shorteners. Twitter now offers those features itself.

The set of tools does not seem to change the strict developer rules that Twitter applies to Twitter apps, such as the maximum number of users of 100,000 per app. The paid Android app Talon recently ran into this, but the developer got around that by releasing a new app called Talon Plus.