Twitter's developer outreach is actually going pretty well

#HelloWorld got over 5,700 Tweets, and Twitter's dev team will be hosting bi-weekly office hours

It was only about a week ago that newly minted Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey attempted to reverse years of animosity between the company and developers. The question was, would developers come back?

So far it looks like they will, according to an update from Twitter on Thursday.

Part of Dorsey's outreach included encouraging developers to open a dialogue with the company via a new hashtag, #HelloWorld, so that developers could tell Twitter directly what they wanted to see happen.

The plan seems to have worked, as there were 5,746 Tweets sent out in just the first three days, of which "the majority were about the Twitter consumer app or our business in general."

So what do developers want to see? On Twitter, they want to be able to edit Tweets (I only support this is if, like Facebook, you can see the edit history). A bunch want the 140 character limit gone, which may be happening soon enough, and a lot of them don't . They want improved list features, accessibility improvements across the product, and improved search.

Twitter also said that there was "Lots of feedback about Moments," a product that was only released three weeks ago, though it did not say whether it was good or bad.

On the platform side the requests were for changes to Twitter’s API rate limits and token restrictions. Developers also want the company to ake more APIs public and make beta applications open, to provide more transparency and a clearer upgrade path to its Gnip offerings. Finally, they want Twitter to clarify the Developer Agreement and Developer Policy.

It's good that a dialogue has begun between both sides, after Twitter drove developers away with its new API all the way  back in 2012, which put lower rate limits, authentication, and certification requirements in place for those using its service.

It stated that applications that have more than at least 100,000 users would have to work directly with Twitter on their product, policies and service agreement. Those that already have more than 100,000 user could only grow to 200% of their current size before they would be contacted by Twitter.

Basically, Twitter wanted to encourage developers in order to incorporate Twitter's own products, such as TwitterCards, into their sites, and not the other way around.

At least a few sites and services, including Tweetbot and Birdsong were forced to shut down because of the restrictions.

Twitter asked for developers to be heard, they responded, and now the ball is once again in Twitter's court. It will have to decide how to proceed from here and which of these suggestions it wants to seriously consider. Luckily, it looks like Twitter is already taking them seriously, announcing that it will be hosting bi-weekly office hours with its developers team.

Twitter needs developers if it wants to grow. They are the ones that create the cool features that hook users in, and keep them using the service. Good for Dorsey for recognizing that.

VatorNews has reached out to Twitter for comment on these suggestions. We will update this story if we learn more.

(Image source: memecrunch.com)