Loic Le Meur, Seesmic founder and tech scene leader, was clearly bullish on the Twitter platform in this interview conducted yesterday at Chirp, the Twitter developer conference.
Le Meur, whose company is launching its own platform, is a big believer in the opportunities for those who develop Twitter apps. Innovative apps that add value and diversity will always find a place in the market, and Le Meur is confident about Seesmic’s current position.
Seesmic currently has a web client, Windows and AIR desktop apps, and mobile applications for the BlackBerry and Android operating systems. Twitter has or is soon releasing official versions of all of these except the desktop app, which the company told us it doesn’t plan to develop. However, this was the company’s original position on mobile apps, as well. Historically, we’ve learned that Twitter doesn’t plan to develop (or acquire) native apps — until it does develop (or acquire) them. Le Meur knows he might have to compete with Twitter in the desktop client category one day, but it’s not certain if or when that day will come.
In the meantime, Seesmic does many things that Twitter will likely never do. For one thing, it integrates multiple platforms including Facebook and LinkedIn. Its all-in-one dashboard solution is something that power users (and perhaps, one day, average end users) need and love, if it’s done correctly.
Le Meur’s confident position is one Seesmic needs right now. With a shaky ecosystem of third-party apps and an uncertain future for Twitter app developers, his be-awesome-or-get-out-of-the-way stance is refreshing, the flip side of the capitalistic coin that Twitter has tossed to developers as it grows from a startup into a profitable company.