Twitter allows native tweet sending to Facebook: Handfuls of developers killed off
Twitter has added Facebook functionality -- at long last -- to make it easier to send your tweets to the world's largest social network.
For years now, it has required either third-party intervention, by allowing a tweet-to-Facebook application through means of hashtagging, or by cross-posting from Twitter to Facebook.
Finally, this functionality is now native to the microblogging service, allowing users to cross-post automatically.
All you have to do is head to your Twitter settings page, head to the Profile tab and look for the magic Facebook button.
It will connect as an application, and you will have to 'allow' Twitter to post to your wall.
However, if you are to tweet someone with an @ reply, you can disable this from being posted to your Facebook wall as well, to reduce the chances of over-spamming your friends.
But as Twitter grows and can afford to roll out new functionality, it puts into question how third-party developers will survive if these on-the-market applications are negated by native functionality.
It's not the first time Twitter has done this. Once considered a bit of a 'joke' for not having a stable or steady business plan, it began to fill in the gaps seemingly based on what third-party developers had added to the service.
Twitter's t.co URL shortener springs to mind, with some asking whether third-party URL shortening will fizzle out.
Google took to creating its own URL shortening service last year, in what turned out to be a lucrative market for Twitter developers. While Google's official URL shortener remains under constant development, it is still a heavy contender for the original, better established shorteners.
But bit.ly, with custom domain support and in-built analytics and statistics, still rides the waves of the web as one of the most used URL shorteners available survived.
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