Twitter Dumps LinkedIn ... What's Next?

Breaking up is hard to do. It can either wreck the individuals, or allow them to find themselves.

It will be curious to see how the subtle break up between Twitter and LinkedIn will play out. This weekend, LinkedIn divulged via an email to its participants that it will no longer distribute tweets. The move is apparently intended to comply with a new Twitter policy prohibiting third-parties from using its content in a way that mirrors the mini-blog website.

What does this mean? In a way, this could allow both participants in this social utility breakup to move on, find themselves and succeed separate from the other site.

For Twitter, it appears to be an attempt to exercise its emerging clout and take more control over its content. To be correct, it is asserting more control over the content created by its users. It is a gutsy move, but apparently one that Twitter believes is necessary. Twitter is no Facebook. It is not LinkedIn. Twitter has nothing if it loses its user content.

I personally like LinkedIn's position post-breakup. This view isn't shared by everyone, some of which are critical of the site's decision to let its users' posts flow through to Twitter.(Users have to click a button to do so.)

"That's a nice supplement, but not many people use LinkedIn to share or take in content," Salvador Rodriguez writes in a recent blog. "That means most people won't even notice this change, and the ones who do are going to be left with fewer reasons to come back to LinkedIn."

I strongly disagree. For starters, the breakup allows LinkedIn to continue to focus on what it does best, facilitating networking and connecting employers to potential employees. (Rodriguez acquiesces to this in his blog.) 

I believe the LinkedIn's continued inclusiveness of tweeting will serve it well. Often in a human breakup, friends are torn between maintaining a relationship with either of the parties involved. This may also prove to be the case here.


By being inclusive, LinkedIn is giving users more a reason to stock with the site. If LinkedIn's 130+ million users would just take advantage of this open framework, it would reduce their need to jump over to Twitter. Thus, a move by Twitter to white knuckle and retain its users could backfire. Apparently some developers are already spooked.

I agree with Rodriguez that LinkedIn must "continue to emphasize its strength -  being the premier source of online social business connections." But it certainly can foster this open relationship as it looks to forge a strategy to get its user to post more on its site.

Only time will tell who benefits from this breakup. I am eagerly awaiting the results.