Twitter developers have until March to comply with new rules

Twitter officially launched its new developer interface today, which means developers will have six months to conform to the company's new, restrictive guidelines.

After some confusion and disgruntled comments from some developers, Twitter is also trying to clear up some aspects of the new application programming interface, known to developers as the API.

"Additionally, based on feedback after the original blog post, we felt it was important to clarify one thing about user tokens and the 100,000 user token limit," Jason Costa, who works on the company's platform, wrote on the company's blog today. "The 100,000 user token limit applies only to the small set of clients replicating the core Twitter experience. It does not apply to the majority of other applications in the broader ecosystem."

This means those who have created applications that don't drive direct traffic to the Twitter site can only have up to 100,000 users at a time.

If developers don't comply by March 5, Twitter will simply cut off access to the API feed. The changes have already affected popular Twitter app Tweetbot, which stopped running its alpha version last week (Tweetbot released a beta version, which can't add new users, shortly after).

Twitter is clearly determined to protect its core assets with this rollout. The company's new developer guidelines target developers who duplicate aspects of Twitter's own site, which the company has committed to improving (and to making money from). At the same time, the microblogging site has deepened its relationship with app developers whose products complement the site, going as far as to create a product certification program for those who don't threaten what Twitter sees as its core business.