Twitter Ends Two-Way Street with LinkedIn

Twitter, looking to better protect its Tweet-streams, began blocking on Friday the display of Tweets on LinkedIn. Users on LinkedIn, however, can still share their status updates on that professional site via Twitter.

On Friday, a notice by LinkedIn Director of Product Management Ryan Roslansky appeared on that site. He said that, since 2009, professional conversations had been shared on both platforms but that, beginning Friday, “Tweets will no longer be displayed on LinkedIn.”

‘Evolved Its Strategy’

Roslansky added that the microblogging service has “evolved its strategy.” But, he noted, “moving forward, you will still be able to share updates with your Twitter audience by posting them on LinkedIn.”

To share their LinkedIn updates with Twitter followers, LinkedIn users select a “share” box next to the Twitter logo. Updates on LinkedIn will then be shown on both that site and to that user’s Twitter followers.

In a posting Friday on its Developers Blog, Twitter’s Michael Sippey noted his company intends to “more thoroughly enforce” its Developer Rules of the Road with partners. While LinkedIn was not specifically mentioned in the blog posting, the timing suggested that the LinkedIn cutoff was related to this enforcement.

As with the new Twitter cards that provide for “expanded Tweets,” Sippey said, the company wants “developers to be able to build applications that run within Tweets.” He noted that CEO Dick Costolo had recently said the company would work “more and more as a platform to allow third parties to build into Twitter.”

‘Core Twitter Consumption Experience’

The aim, Sippey noted, is to provide “the core Twitter consumption experience through a consistent set of products and tools,” adding that company had said in 2011 developers should not “build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.”

He also mentioned Twitter is in the process of developing Twitter features that can be consistently embedded in other sites, including a Tweet Button, a Follow Button, embeddable Tweets and a search widget.

Twitter is preparing itself for going public in the not-too-distant future, and maximizing its brand, revenue and unique consumer experience are items that are high up on its To-Do List.