Twitter Responds to "Tweet" Trademark Issue

Earlier this week we came across an interesting article on TechCrunch about the use of the word "Tweet" by Twitter application designers. The post seemed to imply that Twitter has grown increasingly concerned with the use of the word "Tweet" in applications and websites. The conversation centered around an email conversation forwarded to TechCrunch blogger Robin Wauters between the Twitter API team member and a third party developer.

A quick quote from that blog post:

Twitter, Inc is uncomfortable with the use of the word Tweet (our trademark) and the similarity in your UI and our own. How can we go about having you change your UI to better differentiate your offering from our own?

It wasn't long before Twitter responded on their Twitter Blog, adding a very interesting layer of perspective to the issue.

Twitter has apparently filed trademarks for the word "Tweet" (which they probably should have done, I dunno, two years ago), but assures the Twitter community that they're not going on a Twitch-hunt over use of the word.

From the twitter blog post:

We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of "going after" the wonderful applications and services that use the word in their name when associated with Twitter. In fact, we encourage the use of the word Tweet. However, if we come across a confusing or damaging project, the recourse to act responsibly to protect both users and our brand is important.

It's actually a very reasonable perspective, and one that they're quite flexible about. Where other companies might freak out over the use of their brandname, Twitter often has no problem allowing developers to use their trademarks. There are, however, exceptions, and those exceptions seem to be cases in which applications are confusing to the point of potentially damaging the Twitter brand. With an increasing proliferation of "phishing" sites that collect Twitter users' login credentials and use them to spam the site with self-promoting advertisements, Twitter realizes that they need to draw the line somewhere - although where, exactly, that line will be drawn is up to them.

We're not concerned - in fact, I personally welcome it. It's getting harder and harder to distinguish between the myriad of Twitter applications with the word "Tweet" in their title, and quite honestly, I think these developers could work a little harder to build a brand that's independent of Twitter. Take Seesmic Desktop for example - a great Twitter application that doesn't take advantage of the Twitter brand anywhere in its name, look and feel, or branding. That is what we need more of, and that's what I think Twitter is trying to encourage with this blog post.

Now, if they try to trademark "Twit" I might have to reappraise my analysis of the situation.

Jul 2, 2009

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