Twitter is consolidating its grip on data analytics and resellers using its data in real-time

Twitter has suspended negotiations over the future use of the social media giant’s data with big data analytics provider DataSift, sparking concerns the firm plans to shut out others in the ecosystem of data analytics providers it enables.

In a recent blog post penned by DataSift’s chief exec and founder, Nick Halstead, the company aimed to reaffirm to customers that’s its business model “never relied on access to Twitter data” and that it is extending its reach into “business-owned data.”

But, the company still attacked the social media giant for damaging the ecosystem it enables.

“Our goal has always been to provide a one-stop shop for our customers to access all the types of data from a variety of networks and be able to consume it in the most efficient way. Less noise, more actionable results. This is what truly matters to companies that deal with social data,” Halstead explained.

“The bottom line: Twitter has seriously damaged the ecosystem this week. 80% of our customers use technology that can’t be replaced by Twitter. At the end of the day, Twitter is providing data licensing, not processing data to enable analysis.”

“Twitter also demonstrated that it doesn’t understand the basic rules of this market: social networks make money from engagement and advertising. Revenue from data should be a secondary concern to distribution and it should occur only in a privacy-safe way. Better understanding of their audiences means more engagement and more ad spend from brands. More noise = less ad spend.”

DataSift was one three data resellers that enjoy privileged access to Twitter’s data in real-time – Gnip, which is now owned by Twitter, and NTT Data being the other two.

The move to strengthening its grip over the analysis ecosystem seems aimed at bolstering Gnip’s business. A similarly-timed post on Gnip’s blog by Zach Hofer-Shall, head of Twitter more or less explained that the Gnip acquisition was a “first step” towards developing a more direct relationship with data customers, which would suggest other firehose-related negotiations may likely sour in the coming months if they haven’t already (BCN reached out to NTT Data for comment).

Some have, reasonably, hit out at Twitter for effectively eating its own ecosystem and shutting down third party innovation.  For instance Steven Willmott, chief executive of 3Scale, an API services vendor, said shutting down firehose access will result in niche verticals being underserved.

“While it makes sense at some level to want to be closer to the consumers of data (that’s valuable and laudable from a product perspective), removing other channels is an innovation bust. Twitter will no doubt do a great job on a range of use-cases but it’s severely damaging not to have a means to enable full firehose access for others. Twitter should really be expanding firehose access, not restricting it”

Julien Genestoux, founder of data feed service provider Superfeedr, said the recent move to cut off firehose access is not very different from what Twitter did a couple years ago when they started limiting the 3rd party client’s API accesses, and that Facebook often does much the same with partners it claims to give full data access to.

“The problem isn’t the company. The problem is the pattern. When using an API, developers are completely surrendering any kind of bargain power they have. There’s a reason we talk about slave and master in computer science. API’s are whips for web companies. This is the very tool they use to enforce a strong coupling and dependence to their platform,” he said.

While Twitter seems to be severely restricting the data reseller ecosystem it’s also redoubling its efforts to capture the hearts and minds of the enterprise developer, with coveted access to its data being placed front and centre. Twitter is working with IBM to make its data stream available to Big Blue’s clients, and in March this year IBM said it has over 100 pilots in place that see the company working with enterprises in a range of verticals to create cloud-based services integrating Twitter data and Watson analytics.