????Twitter和商務社交網站LinkedIn一拍兩散了。就像那些離異家庭的孩子們一樣，這兩個網站的粉絲們本周一覺醒來，發現一切都變了。就在上周五，Twitter宣布將終止與商務社交網站LinkedIn的合作。盡管LinkedIn的用戶現在仍然可以通過LinkedIn更新Twitter的狀態，但他們通過Twitter發出的消息卻不會再同步到LinkedIn上。

????消息傳出之后，各大科技媒體立即開始緊張地分析兩家公司分手的原因。科技網站AllThingsD的邁克?伊薩克指出，Twitter的許多新功能都沒有在LinkedIn上顯示，比如Twitter的“可擴展消息”功能（它可以顯示來自《紐約時報》(The New York Times)等網站的新聞摘要和照片）以及多線程對話功能等。Twitter的消費產品負責人邁克爾?西皮也在公司的一篇博文中對此表示了認同。他向研發者們提醒說：“（你們）需要能夠看到，可擴展消息功能以及其它功能會讓Twitter變得更加吸引人，也更容易使用。”

????就像大多數內斗一樣，錢也是導致兩家分手的一個重要原因。科技網站GigaOM的馬修?英格拉姆認為，Twitter的大多數收入依靠“眼球經濟”，也就是把消費者的關注賣給廣告商。從這一點看，它和報紙以及其他任何媒體沒有太大區別。維珍美國航空公司（Virgin America）、紅牛飲料（Red Bull）、可口可樂（Coca-Cola）等大企業都斥巨資在Twitter上做推廣。這些推廣消息要么會在消費者搜索相關關鍵詞時直接顯示出來，要么就直接推送給目標用戶。其它做廣告的方法還包括價格更昂貴的熱門話題推廣，以及推廣賬戶等，這些都會顯示在用戶的“關注誰”側邊欄里。

????不過當LinkedIn這樣的第三方開發者共享了Twitter的應用程序界面后，他們就會把相當一部分消息引導到自己的服務上，也就是把相當一部分消費者的眼球吸引到自己的網站上來。（一個應用程序界面就像一個總鑰匙，使外來者可以調用Twitter的數據，并且在這個平臺上構建應用程序。）不過多年以來，在Twitter的默許下，整個外部開發者生態系統都在這樣做。事實上，Twitter的創始人比茲?斯通自己也表示，這種方法“可能是——甚至可以說一定是我們對Twitter做的最重要的事。”在50多萬個第三方應用的幫助下，Twitter在短短6年里就吸引了5,000萬用戶。

????不過這里也有些矛盾之處：擁有一個開放的應用程序界面（API）對于增長來說是件好事。由于你的網絡支持各種創新的、有用的應用程序，用戶自然蜂擁而至。不過要通過開放的應用程序界面生財卻不是那么容易，因為你的客戶可以說也在不斷地被第三方應用吸走。Twitter過去兩年里一直糾結于這個兩難的局面。它悄悄地加強了對外部開發者的控制，對自身的API加以限制，并從第三方開發者那里奪取應用的控制權。這么一看，Twitter決定終止在LinkedIn上的同步也就可以理解了。這樣做可以把消費者重新拉回到自己的網站，讓他們使用自家品牌的應用，這樣Twitter才能間接地把他們的關注拿來賣錢。

????這種解釋聽起來很合理。不過這是最佳的解決方案嗎？科技企業家諾瓦?斯皮瓦克認為，Twitter作為一個單獨的目標站點，它所能吸引到的訪問量，永遠無法與圍繞在它的旗幟下的第三方應用形成的龐大的生態系統相比。與其收緊對API的控制權，與LinkedIn等應用一刀兩斷，Twitter倒不如另辟蹊徑，利用現有的第三方應用的用戶生錢。這種方法不僅聽起來行得通，而且實際上也非常簡單。

????比如Twitter可以把它的推廣消息和其它廣告直接推送到第三方應用使用的API流中去。這樣一來，Twitter完全無需切斷與LinkedIn的關系，LinkedIn的用戶就可以在LinkedIn上直接看到推送來的廣告信息。另外他們在登錄Twitter時也會偶爾在首頁上看到一些推廣消息。這種安排似乎完全不是難事。

????不過，如果你覺得這些推廣消息非常令人反感的話，那么還有第二個方案。Twitter可以設置一些高級API權限讓開發者們購買——也就是沒有推廣消息和廣告。不管采取哪個方案，Twitter都可以獲得一筆來之不易的收入，外部開發者則可以保留API權限，消費者也可獲得他們想要的功能。整個生態系統可以繼續成長和繁榮發展。同時，Twitter也立即成了互聯網的廣告大戶，足以與谷歌（Google）的AdSense和Facebook的廣告業務呈鼎足之勢。

????Like children of a troubled marriage, fans of Twitter and LinkedIn woke up this week wondering what went wrong. Asannounced last Friday, Twitter ended its tweet syndication agreement with LinkedIn. While LinkedIn users can still post status updates from the site on Twitter, their tweets will no longer show up within LinkedIn activity streams.

????The digerati have been busy dissecting the unexpected breakup. Mike Isaac of All Things D points out that many of Twitter's new features -- expandable tweets (that can show summaries and photos from sites like The New York Times) and threaded conversations -- weren't displaying on LinkedIn (LNKD). Twitter's own consumer product lead Michael Sippey echoes this explanation in a company blog post, cautioning developers that "[you] need to be able to see expanded Tweets and other features that make Twitter more engaging and easier to use."

????But money -- as in most domestic squabbles -- also appears to be a big part of the picture. Twitter makes much of its revenue (a reported $260 million last year) by selling the gaze of consumers' eyeballs to advertisers. In this respect, it's hardly different from a newspaper or any other media entity, as GigaOM's Mathew Ingram convincingly argues. In Twitter's case, companies like Virgin America or Red Bull or Coca-Cola (CCE) pay handsomely for promoted tweets, which show up in Twitter searches for relevant keywords or are injected directly into targeted users' timelines. Other ad options include the pricier promoted trends, as well as promoted accounts, which appear in users' "Who to follow" sidebars.

????But when third-party developers like LinkedIn tap into Twitter's API -- channeling tweets onto their services -- they siphon off a good chunk of those consumer eyeballs to their own sites. (Think of an API as a sort of master-key allowing outsiders to access Twitter's data and build apps on top of its platform.) Now, for years this has been done by an entire ecosystem of outside developers with Twitter's full blessing. In fact, the network's founder Biz Stone himself credited this approach as "arguably the most important, or maybe even unarguably, the most important thing we've done with Twitter." Fueled by a parallel universe of more than a million third-party apps and counting, Twitter has grown to a half-billion users in six short years.

????And there's the rub: Having a wide-open API is great for growth - users flood in as your network becomes a backbone for all kinds of innovative, useful apps. Monetizing a wide-open API can prove a bit tricky, however, since you're essentially funneling consumers away from your site. Twitter has struggled with this conundrum over the last two years, quietly tightening the reins on outside developers, restricting its API and wresting control of apps back from third parties. In this light, Twitter's decision to stop sending its tweets to LinkedIn begins to make sense, part of a larger push to channel consumers back to its own site and branded apps, where they can be monetized indirectly through ad sales.

????That seems logical enough. But is it the best solution? As serial tech entrepreneur Nova Spivack argues, Twitter as a single destination site will never capture as many eyeballs as the collective universe of third-party apps in its orbit. Instead of tightening its API and cutting off apps liked LinkedIn, wouldn't it be smarter for Twitter to find a way to monetize all of those existing third-party users? Not only does this seem to make sense, it would also be really easy to do.

????How? Twitter could inject its own promoted tweets and other ads right into the API stream used by third-party apps. So, for instance, LinkedIn users -- instead of facing a Twitter blackout -- would see all the tweets from their professional network, plus the occasional promoted tweet that they'd find on their Twitter homepage anyway. That hardly seems like a hardship.

????But suppose you do find those promoted tweets objectionable. That's where Plan B comes in. Developers would also have the option of paying Twitter for premium API access, enabling them to nix promoted tweets and other ads. Either way, Twitter gets its hard-won revenue, outside developers retain API access and consumers get the functionality they want. The entire ecosystem continues to grow and flourish. Plus, Twitter instantly becomes one of the web's ad powerhouses, with a network rivaling Google (GOOG) AdSense or Facebook (FB) Ads.