A few days ago, my Tweetdeck twitter android column was flooded with the words, “Official Twitter Android App Just released” or something to that effect. I really didn’t have the time to fully investigate, even though I caught bits and pieces on Twitter’s Official Blog, but it certainly got me to wondering about the word “Official”. What factors designate an app as “official” when it wasn’t even:
1. the first
2. there to meet the needs of people
3. the first
4. there to meet the needs of the majority
I’m not implying that something has to be “first” in order to be considered “official”. Not like the winner of the Miss Universe Pageant, making her the “official” Miss Universe for a particular year, or the winner of the “Rund um den Finanzplatz-Eschborn Frankfurt” bike race, making Fabian Wegmann the “official” winner of that race on May 1st. I suppose something can be considered “official” just because someone says so.
I suppose that if TechCrunch says it’s Official then so be it. Chris Pirillo did a short and sweet blog post about it and the one thing I liked about Chris’ post was that it didn’t mention the word “Official”.
Then again, if the big guys of Twitter teamed up with the developers of the big guys that developed the Android OS it should be safe to say that big guys + big guys = official. But what makes the word “official” official kind of mute with this twitter app is that is only supports the Android OS version 2.1. There are still a plethora of Android phones out there running 1.5! I’m sure the “official” Twitter/Android developers will get around to making their “official” twitter app available for all platforms otherwise, what’s the point? And yes, let’s not go into Android’s fragmented nature, shall we not?
In any case, I’ll definitely be downloading this twitter app and see how it fares with the other twitter apps that have been out there already. My good friends over at www.androidpit.de did a really good review on this new twitter app. What I’m wondering is, like the many other users of other twitter clients, “How good IS this app in comparison to the rest?” I may find myself feeling the need to retract that sentence only because of the fact that the “official” Google Android developers were apparently involved in helping to develop this one. Another questions is, “How loyal will users of other twitter clients be, seeing as there seems to now be an “official” twitter app? “
Which brings us to other more interesting behavioral cases when it comes to brand engagement with its users:
1. Staying with a twitter client (or any app or brand) because you’ve found it has not only met your needs but you and the app have sort of grown together through all its developmental stages?
2. Leaving your twitter client for a new, more trendy and fully loaded app?
The good thing about leaving your old twitter client for a fancy new one is that there is no alimony to pay, divorce fees or the usual back and forth bickering that goes on during the process of separation.
In any case, this certainly gives the other twitter client developers something to think about.
What do you think?
