I don't usually quote pg, but I think in this case it's relevant: "Old Twitter is what you'd get if an engineer brought New Twitter to Steve Jobs, and Steve beat on him relentlessly to simplify it." (twitter.com/#!/paulg/status/25998745559) To me adding a file upload button, a To:/CC: field, a link field, etc. etc. would be even worse. The beauty of an API is that power users can download and/or signup for apps that add on to the original service in the exact, fussy way they want. And non-power users can just type into a textarea.

it's not much of a backlash I suppose, but a small one: twitter.com/paulg/status/25998745559

I started using this app myself at about the time I started using Twitter, and it has helped me to understand Twitter a lot better. It's quite interesting how different types of tweets spread. E.g. this tweet twitter.com/paulg/status/27959363780 got a large number of retweets but had a comparatively small total reach because it was retweeted mostly by hackers, who didn't have many followers. Whereas the retweets of this one twitter.com/paulg/status/25998745559 generated a much larger total reach, presumably because it was about Twitter itself, and thus was retweeted by some community insiders who had lots of followers. Maybe my experience is unusual because I happened to start using both at the same time, but I couldn't imagine using Twitter without Crowdbooster.