I'll keep publishing

I was just reading this, which is all about formalising re-tweets via Twitters API;
re: http://mashable.com/2009/08/13/details-project-retweet/

It struck me that this could break services like Cleartext ESM where we are proxying Twitter for generic XMPP desktop and mobile clients. We don’t use the API at the end point, but at the ‘cloud based’ XMPP<>Twitter gateway, this means any XMPP/Jabber client can access the full set of message driven commands like RT and # tags (are has tags next to get plugged into the API?).

Various other companies, like Process-One, have Twitter gateways for XMPP servers and run XMPP<>Twitter services like Tweet.im. We do this so that people can use Jabber/XMPP desktop and mobile clients to IM and  tweet rather than have an multiple IM and micro-blogging apps.

It makes sense for our corporate clients as well because they can deploy a standard single end point for all their IM/micro-blogging needs, for example, MSN, AIM, GTalk, identi.ca and Jaiku as well, not just Twitter.

Have the guys at Twitter considered this? Or is this second time in two years that changes at Twitter will bounce XMPP users?

Is it that Twitter prefers direct contact with the end points via their API, maybe to route advertising to generate that elusive revenue stream, and if so what does that mean for the myriad of online web services that also proxy Twitter like CoTweet and Seesmic, or are these classed as apps?

I for one would like to get  abetter understanding so that Cleartext doesn’t head down a blind ally with our own products and services, although I can already see that maybe all we need is a customised XMPP end point and some mods to the hosted Twitter gateway.

But then that means we’re no longer supporting standard XMPP apps. Of course we could discover the RT in a tweet and convert it to an API call at the gateway.

I suppose what we really need is a federated Twitter clone that a) uses XMPP and b) leap frogs Twitter in the popularity stakes, time for a laconi.ca/status.net based success story maybe? That’s a big ask.