Will Twitter end up hurting its developer ecosystem with redesign

Twitter will be changing very soon. It is already carrying out a massive re-design of their website according to a Twitter employee who posted a doodle of what the new design could be like. I guess this is a way to start the much awaited monetization process of Twitter. Twitter has developed a system and kept trying to keep it running smoothly and their focus has been singular regarding that. Now that it changes it focus to the design part how will it hurt the developer ecosystem which might be heavily dependent on Twitter ?

What Twitter redesign might mean?

Twitter has a big problem with new comers. I personally signed-up with Twitter before I started to blog but hardly used it because I had no patience to learn all about it. Using Twitter Apps was something I did not even know much about. This is Twitter’s weak point where a lot of new users end up not using Twitter because all you can do with Twitter cannot be really done from the website.

So personally I think Twitter re-design might address three issues.

1. New users will find it easy to use with the interface being changed and help forums being more readily and actively promoted.
2. Twitter to retain new users will have to explain the concepts of reTweet and also have its own inbuilt URL shortener.
3. Twitter might also want to have a more active presence on the mobile markets with their own mobiles apps rather than have 3rd party mobile apps.

Will this hurt the Twitter eco-system?

So how will it hurt the Twitter eco-system. If Twitter has its own URL shortening service will the other short URL services which are pretty much dependent on Twitter for their livelihood survive? I use HootSuite and TweetDeck for using Twitter. What will happen to these two applications if Twitter can itself allow me to do all that these apps can do. Twitter has already announced the takeover of Tweetie a mobile application for iPhones.

It seems Twitter will end up hurting the eco-system which first gave it life with its new improvements and monetization plans. What do you think will be the scenario? Will Twitter evolve and hurt its eco-system or will it stay put and only concentrating on maintenance and let the Twitter based apps and services keep evolving around its core.

Link: Mashable