Third-party software developers became alarmed when Twitter engineer Alex Payne recently boasted on his blog about new features for the company’s website.

“If you had some of the nifty site features that we Twitter employees have, you might not want to use a desktop client,” Payne wrote, according to Mark Milian in “As Twitter improves website, app makers push tweets in other directions” on the Los Angeles Times technology blog.

Software makers fear that Twitter is trying to squeeze them out of the market, writes Milian, adding that Payne tried explaining his way out of the jam, saying that the tweaks are built on top of options Twitter already gave to developers.

Now past the point where Twitter’s developers had to spend most of their time and resources making the site reliable, investors are plentiful, revenue from search deals is flowing and Twitter is building upon its website, says Milian.

He advises that the future of third-party applications will be “where Twitter, the company, isn’t.”

The SSN take: It’s a free market. If you’re going to swim (or sink) with a whale, you have to pay attention to where it’s going.

John Sniffen, March 24, 2010

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