UberTwitter has been around since 2009 and has become the most popular Twitter client for BlackBerry devices. Last month UberTwitter was acquired by PostUp who promptly changed their company name to
UberMedia. Since then, there have been rumors and confirmations that UberTwitter has been violating Twitter’s terms of service. UberTwitter was banned from Twitter until they made certain changes.
The first violation was that Direct Messages and tweets from protected accounts in UberTwitter were allowed to be longer than 140 characters. I thought this limit was pretty clear since Twitter was created. Why should UberTwitter users be exempt from this? The second violation was that tweets were being modified by UberMedia to make money. I’m not sure how this was done, but that’s a definite no-no. Twitter also demanded that UberTwitter change their name. After polling their users, they decided to go with UberSocial. Kind of makes sense. Their original name was basically saying its better than something it depends on to survive. Here’s the
tweet from what used to be @ubertwitter:
“To be a better partner with Twitter we are changing ’s name to . We will hope to have twitter reactivate us shortly.”
Apparently there is a new version ready that
@UberSoc (I guess those last 3 letters made it too long? Or maybe they wear nice socks?) is waiting on Twitter to verify and approve. I’m guessing Twitter will take their sweet time on this one. A quick
search on App World shows that UberSocial has not been approved as an app yet. When I tried to download UberSocial from their
official website, there is a friendly message stating:
“Welcome! You have found the right place to download the most advanced Twitter client available today. Unfortunately Twitter has not finished reviewing our application in order to make sure it complies with their terms of service. Once they do, this page will contain the links to download the latest version.
Patiently Waiting,
The UberSocial Development Team”
I’m kind of doubting that the patience level over at UberMedia is high at all. However; even though this isn’t the best publicity, it is huge exposure and could turn out to be great for UberSocial in the end. What do you think?
Below is the full statement from the CEO of UberMedia:
STATEMENT FROM UBERMEDIA REGARDING TWITTER’S SUSPENSION OF SERVICE TO UBERTWITTER, TWIDROYD AND UBERCURRENT
PASADENA, CA – February 18, 2011 – Early Friday morning, Twitter shut off access to its service by several of our Twitter client applications: UberTwitter, Twidroyd, and UberCurrent. Twitter then notified us that they believed we were in violation of several provisions of their terms of service.
We were immediately in touch with Twitter, and the changes they asked us to make were very small. As a result, we have completed the changes, and new apps are currently being posted to their respective stores. Twitter has assured us that as soon as those changes were complete, they would reactivate our applications.
Twitter also asked us to modify the name of UberTwitter. We began a process of changing the name three weeks ago by polling our users, and we’ve decided based on their input to change the product name to UberSocial, which we completed today.
To our millions of loyal users, we appreciate your patience during this temporary period. We look forward to continuing our innovations on the Twitter platform.
Bill Gross, CEO
UberMedia, Inc
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