Twitter’s API Rules Force Windows 8 Client Tweetro To Shutter Free App & Go Paid

Tweetro, a popular free Twitter client for Windows 8, is shutting down its free version and will work on a paid version — the latest episode of Twitter’s recent API changes impacting its developer community.

Tweetro recently ran up against Twitter’s 100,000 user token limit and temporarily pulled its app from the Windows Store pending further clarification from Twitter.

As WindowsObserver.com reports today, Twitter’s clarification came with bad news from Lazyworm, the makers of Tweetro:

“Thank you for reaching out to get clarification on our developer policies. As you know, we discourage developers from building apps that replicate our core user experience (aka “Twitter clients”). We know that there are developers that want to take their passion for Twitter and its ecosystem to unique underserved situations. As such, we have built some flexibility into our policy with regard to user tokens — which went into effect September 5th, 2012.”

“…Unfortunately, It does not appear that your service addresses an area that our current or future products do not already serve. As such, it does not qualify for an exemption.”

That last bit is important because Twitter doesn’t currently offer an official client for Windows 8, but Twitter is saying its future products will serve those users. Ergo, Tweetro is pretty much out of luck.

In response, Lazyworm co-founder Atta Elayyan says that the free Tweetro app is dead and the company will develop an “exclusive” paid version.

It’s a similar situation to what Tapbots recently encountered with its popular Tweetbot app for desktop Mac users. Due to Twitter’s user limits, Tapbots had to charge $20 to basically limit adoption.

And I suspect we’ll see more developers forced to do the same thing in the future if they ignore the obvious writing on the wall: Twitter isn’t real big on the idea of third-party Twitter clients.