Twitter apps are about to get a lot more exciting. All our favorite Twitter tools, from iPhone apps to Web apps and beyond, have so far been limited by the fact that developers only have access to a specific set of data, not the full "firehose" of tweets being created.
That's about to change. Twitter announced today at LeWeb conference in Paris that the firehose will be made available to all developers in "early 2010". This would give ordinary coders the same access to data that Google and Bing have, and create a platform for even greater innovation. Twitter's Director of Platform Ryan Sarver said the firehose would be monetized via revenue sharing with partners, although did not provide details.
Combined with the launch of Google Real-time, the move could restart Twitter's formerly rapid growth, which many say has flatlined over recent months.