Twitter just suspended the crazy popular BlackBerry and Android Twitters apps UberTwitter and Twidroyd, respectively – among others – because they “violated Twitter policies and trademarks in a variety of ways”. Like “a privacy issue with private Direct Messages longer than 140 characters, trademark infringement, and changing the content of users’ tweets in order to make money,” says a Twitter spokespersona.
UberMedia is something of a powerhouse of Twitter applications, owning UberTwitter, Twidroyd, Echofon, TweetDeck and UberCurrent. With the purchase of TweetDeck, something like 20 per cent of all tweets sent daily pass through UberMedia.
One issue with UberTwitter is probably the name. Twitter doesn’t like applications using official Twitter terms in their name, like “tweet” and especially the word “twitter” itself. (That’s why TwitterFon became EchoFon.) I doubt UberMedia, the owners of Twidroyd, UberTwitter and more recently, TweetDeck, will take too long to respond. And I’m sure they just got the message loud and clear from Twitter about who’s in control of the Twitter ecosystem.
Update: As predicted, UberMedia’s been quick to fix things: “New apps are currently being posted to their respective stores. Twitter has assured us that as soon as those changes were complete, they would reactivate our applications.” And yes, they’re changing the name of UberTwitter – now it’s called UberSocial. [Twitter]