I lured you in with that headline, didn’t I? But it’s still a real good question.
On September 30, the best Twitter client for Nokia phones – twibble – ambushed their users. With no notice, they limited features and began asking for money for twibble. But, they were sneaky about it, they did it via an auto-upgrade. After upgrading you suddenly had less features and had to pay for the full version.
First, let me stress again that twibble is a great and hands-down the best Twitter app for you, Nokia.
There has been much discussion and disbelief for both this method and the new model (€ 4,90 license fee). Read the comments on twibble’s own post and search Twitter to catch the mood out there. Jarón Barends has summed up the mistakes concerning this upgrade in full on his blog and tells us how other free apps can learn.
But the big question remains. What should they have done?
The same question is true for any other Twitter client, like TweetDeck, Seesmic (Twhirl), etc. How are they going to make money?
Mashable wrote a post on that topic and it includes the obvious like creating a pro version (with more features, showing targeted advertising, etc.) Actually a combination of those would be best of course. I wouldn’t mind having a full column of TweetDeck filled with short ads, as long as they are nicely targeted. And, if not, I will buy pro. Twibble easily do this, but is that their best choice?
It’s a good choice, but not the best because twibble has something unique to offer. They are a NOKIA client. And guess which company is going to have a hard time in the Battle of the Apps between Android and iPhone? Sure Nokia is still big, but most of the attention in the smartphone and app market goes to Android and iPhone and they both show a great understanding of the current market forces.
Nokia should buy into any much used and appreciated app on (the Symbian) market right now and get a smart professional developer community going to create apps that people actually want to use on their Nokia devices. At the moment Nokia doesn’t seem to be on its way when it comes to that community.
I’m not suggesting they should buy the whole company, but they should invest in the best, like twibble and give them a kick-start in a Ad versus pro model. Nokia then binds developers and users to their products and this might keep them in the game.
If not, i guess it won’t take long before a new Nokia client will arrive, or worse -like me- people seriously consider finally moving to (in my case) Android. Life is going to be bad if can’t use my regular apps for online communications.
Here is something to think about, if you read the twibble’s blogpost an alleged friend of the creator of @twibble, mentions that “He was asked to sell the stuff to some evil big company— but he stood hard as a rock in the storm.” (comment 21).
The following is hypothetical and suggestive, but would this big evil company be Nokia and did Twibble decline an offer? That might not be his smartest move. So who missed out here, Nokia or twibble? Or do you have another suggestion to the situation! Let us know what you think!
