Twitter app developer may be creating rival microblogging service

A developer spurned by Twitter's new stance on third-party applications is developing a competitor to the trendy microblogging service, CNN reported on Wednesday. Ubermedia, creator of the popular UberSocial, Echofon and Twidroyd applications, hopes to address common criticisms of Twitter with the planned offering.

In March, Twitter told its developers that it would rather have developers present user's tweets in unique ways rather than just acting as another way to display their feeds. It also cut access to several applications -- Twidroyd and UberSocial among them -- for various terms of service violations, although UberMedia later corrected the problems and was granted access once again.

Twitter claimed at the time that nine out of ten users access Twitter through either its website or through official apps, and the tone of its statements angered developers. Responses from the developers themselves generally accused the service of abandoning those who had helped it become as successful as it has.

According to CNN sources, UberMedia plans to attract people to its own microblogging service by doing things that Twitter doesn't. For example, longer messages would be allowed and the service would be easier for those to pick up. One criticism of Twitter is that often those new to it have trouble understanding its worth, and often stop using it fairly soon after signing up.

UberMedia may also have a trick up its sleeve in getting its new service in front of as many people as possible initially. It is said to be in talks to acquire TweetDeck, one of the most commonly used third-party applications. The company could simply add support for this to TweetDeck, and put itself in front of a significant number of Twitter users.

In fact, as much as 11.5 percent of all daily tweets could be coming from one of UberMedia's programs, highlighting how potentially disruptive this new service could become. It's not clear at this time whether the service will actually happen, or if it is a step that will be taken only if UberMedia and Twitter's relationship continues to become more strained.

Representatives for both companies would not comment on the report.