In a recent move, Twitter announced last week that they are following the lead of
a few other social media players and launching a “Twitter Labs” where engineers can develop add-ons and new functions on top of the Twitter platform. At the Future of Web Applications conference in London last week, Twitter’s user experience and front end engineering lead Britt Selvitelle said that it’s coming “soon”.
By making this announcement, Twitter joins the ranks of Google and Facebook who also have “Labs” designed to encourage the development and expansion of their social media platforms. Google Labs is the most prominent and develop engineering laboratory. Designed and launched quite a while ago, Google Labs has had great success in expanding the Google platform by leveraging the development power of an army of 3rd party engineers – “crowd sourcing”.
Following Google’s lead, Facebook launched “Prototypes” for developers to build applications on the Facebook platform such as expanding desktop notifications similar to the Tweetdeck software.
Google, Facebook and now Twitter are looking to build their own ecosystem of engineers and entrepreneurs by giving them access to their platform. Where do many of the best new product ideas come from? Typically not the board room, but in the garages and coffee shops throughout the engineering community. Instead of tying to “compete” with these factions, the smart social media players are opening their doors and enabling the development of cool new projects. Bravo to Twitter for following Google’s lead.
Let the innovation begin!
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