Twitter passes one million registered apps

Microblogging service Twitter said Monday that more than one million applications have now been registered, representing the work of over 750,000 developers. This is a marked increase from last year, when just 150,000 registered apps existed.

With such an explosive growth rate, this means a new app is registered with Twitter every 1.5 seconds.

The growth in development for Twitter has also spurred an economy in and of itself. Twitter noted that more than $500 million had been invested in development of these applications, and acquisitions of companies creating these apps have already totaled more than a billion dollars.

"This level of investment is indicative of the opportunity for developers and entrepreneurs to build successful businesses as part of the Twitter platform," the company said in a blog post.

Twitter is not resting on its laurels either. The company has announced a new version of its developers site, which aims to assist prospective and current developers in creating applications on the platform. The company said the relaunched site is aimed at making the content within "more discoverable and understandable."

"The new site enhances communication channels, offers improved reference material and documentation, and will foster better interaction for everyone who visits it," platform product team member Arnaud Meunier said in a blog post describing the new site.

With the explosion of development in Twitter, obviously some concerns come to mind. Many of these applications do generate tweets on their own without any user interaction, meaning that the amount of "tweet spam" is only likely to increase as well.

Users will also need to be vigilant of malicious apps. Access to Twitter's API is easy, and merely requires one to fill out a short form to gain access. Twitter does police use, but only after the fact -- no real approval process is used.