I'm not familiar with quidco, but based on what i can tell, they look like an individual cashback shopping portal. The difference between what I've built and a site like this is that I scan multiple shopping portals so that users can find the best offer.
QuidCo seems to be more international (vs my site is focusing on the US for now), but I imagine I'd eventually index offers from QuidCo
I agree with you that Twitter does have the right to impose a quality Twitter experience across clients. I'm also confident that the very best 3rd-party clients will be able to successfully work together with Twitter to ensure that they continue to exist.
However, the uproar over these changes isn't entirely about this. The most pressing issue is the principle over access to public data. By imposing these restrictions, 3rd-party developers aren't able to access this data, for whatever they'd like to use it for, as easily as they use to be able to. This is something that originally attracted people to Twitter, and is essentially how Twitter made its name (aside from the product itself).
The other issue is that people overwhelmingly feel like these changes are a direct result of Twitter deciding that they need to monetize and profit from their product. While Twitter hasn't directly come out and said this, it's pretty apparent. A lot of the complains I'm hearing are that they would be willing to pay Twitter to ensure that certain features that Twitter doesn't currently implement themselves persist. People in general don't trust Twitter to make the experience as good as some of the 3rd-party developers have because Twitter might not think it's in their best interest from a financial standpoint.
So yes, Twitter is trying to protect its reputation, as it very well should. But in trying to protect its reputation from a user experience standpoint, its also destroying its reputation as a company that works well with 3rd-party developers and allows for access to publicly available data.
First of all, fantastic post. This really highlights an increasing problem in which product developers are focused more on product usage analytics than they are each user's personal experience with the product.
I think there is another way of looking at your Phase 2 though. Your goal is to make your product so good that you can't imagine using anything else. If your product is really that good, I'm not sure that consistent reinforcement is actually necessary. Rather, your product should be so good that users stop using it consciously.
I think one of the best examples of this is Google's search engine. The product itself is so good, and has proved itself so consistently over the years, that most people don't think of using anything else for search. In fact, most people don't think of "searching" at all. I can't count the number of times that I end up on a Google search results page, not realizing that I had gone through the mental thought process of "I need to search for something. I'm going to go to Google, execute a search query, and find what I'm looking for in the results."
Going from thought to results without any significant reinforcements from the product (other than it simply being a great product) is in my opinion, the true sign of a user experience done right.
As it stands right now, yes, it is another form of a button. From what I understand though, they're working to get it to the point where it is a reactive interface. The gesture-based technology is in its infancy at the moment, but the push Flutter is making is where I believe interfaces will go.
Still, I find using a hand to stop music a more natural interface than hitting a button or switching to iTunes. It's a start, but definitely not the end goal.
Fair point about the Kinect. I was gearing this article towards tasks typically done on a computer. Granted the Windows Kinect SDK will allow for similar functionality once developers get on board. It should be interesting to compare the two. In comparing Flutter to the Kinect on XBOX, I've found Flutter to be more accurate, but of course it's more limited.
QuidCo seems to be more international (vs my site is focusing on the US for now), but I imagine I'd eventually index offers from QuidCo