Tumblr was forced to remove Twitter as a source of finding friends for its users on Wednesday. The news came after the microblogging service debuted stricter API rules that negatively impact third-party app developers. Both Tumblr and Twitter later confirmed the removal.
Now, Tumblr users are left with Facebook and Gmail to find friends when signing up for the service. The blogging platform, which has always been tightly integrated with Twitter, expressed its disappointment over the turn of events in the following statement:
“To our dismay, Twitter has restricted our users’ ability to ‘Find Twitter Friends’ on Tumblr. Given our history of embracing their platform, this is especially upsetting. Our syndication feature is responsible for hundreds of millions of tweets, and we eagerly enabled Twitter Cards across 70 million blogs and 30 billion posts as one of Twitter’s first partners. While we’re delighted by the response to our integrations with Facebook and Gmail, we are truly disappointed by Twitter’s decision.”
Could this be part of a new strategy? Or the release of something new? We’ll have to see where this goes.