Twitter has some sad news for the developers; it is not hosting its annual developers conference, Flight, this year. For the past two Octobers, the micro-blogging site has hosted Flight in San Francisco, but this year, there has been no word from the company, notes Recode.
Twitter to focus on smaller regional events
Citing people familiar with the matter, Recode says the conference was, at least tentatively, planned but then abandoned. Twitter spokesperson Will Stickney confirmed that Flight is not happening this year, adding that the social network is instead planning to focus on smaller developer events.
In a statement, he said that after last year’s Flight conference, they heard feedback that smaller, more intimate events are where their developer community see the most value. So they are hosting a series of regional developer events instead of holding a single developer conference in San Francisco, “continuing the momentum from our global #HelloWorld,” Stickney said.
“Given the diversity of things developers are building with Twitter (from MoPub, to the Ads API, to Gnip, Fabric, and more) having more local events will enable us to engage with our community in a much more personal way,” he said.
Such events are important to tech firms
Given how important these types of developer’s conferences are to other big tech giants like Apple, Google and Facebook, never scheduling Flight or rather canceling it is notable. Usually they are good shows for developers, investors and the media where a company shows off features and tools it is building, says Recode.
For example, at its developer conference this fall, Apple announced a new watch. Twitter used Flight two years ago to announce its full developer suite, Fabric. Also CEO Jack Dorsey used Flight last year to apologize to developers for a relationship he described as “a little bit complicated.”
Providing user data for police surveillance
In related news, according to an ACLU report, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook provided feeds of user data to a social-media monitoring program that is used by police to track racially charged protests in Baltimore and Oakland, California.
The ACLU report released Tuesday noted that the monitoring program, created by Geofeedia, included users’ locations and other personal information that was passed onto 500 safety agencies and law enforcement. After being presented with the findings of the study, Twitter and Facebook moved to restrict Geofeedia’s access to data streams, said the civil rights group.
