Saturday, January 26, 2013

Facebook blocks Twitter's new Vine video sharing app

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) is blocking Twitter's new Vine video sharing application from accessing its network, further escalating the rivalry between the two social media giants.
Twitter launched Vine Thursday via Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store. The app enables consumers to film and share videos running no longer than six seconds; users can film clips in a single take or pause the recording to string together montages of brief shots. In the first hours after Vine went live, iOS device owners could click the app's "Find People" button to connect to their Facebook friends, but by midday, the feature was replaced by a pop-up error message stating "Vine is not authorized to make this Facebook request."
A Twitter spokesperson told Mashable the company has nothing to share beyond the in-app notification. Facebook has not responded to requests for comment.
Late last week, Facebook abruptly cut off mobile social networking app Voxer's access to its Find Friends data. The Voxer app, which supports communication via voice, text, push-to-talk and other channels, leveraged Find Friends to let users auto-follow and connect with Facebook friends upon joining its service. Voxer CEO Tom Katis told TechCrunch that Facebook considers Voxer a "competitive social network" and that the app ran afoul of Facebook's Platform Policies, which state "You may not use Facebook Platform to export user data into a competing social network without our permission. Apps on Facebook may not integrate, link to, promote, distribute or redirect to any app on any other competing social network."
Facebook said it will enforce the policy on apps that "use its data to bootstrap growth but don't contribute anything." A spokesperson explained that apps that share content like photos or Open Graph stories with Facebook can continue to access Find Friends data, with only messaging apps that don't share content qualifying as competitors. A subsequent TechCrunch report indicates Facebook also has blocked all API calls from Wonder, a new social search app built by Russian search giant Yandex.
The move to block Vine also follows six months after Twitter disabled Facebook-owned photo sharing app Instagram's access to its own Find Your Friends feature: Instagram responded last month by fully terminating Twitter support, meaning users can no longer view Instagram photos via the microblogging platform. Twitter filled the void days later by rolling out Instagram-like mobile photo editing and filtering features.

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