I’m really amazed at how many people are investing time and money on building tools on top of Twitter. The following links are just a few of the services that are being offered to help people get more out of Twitter’s short text messaging services.

• TwitterSnooze - Hit the snooze button on your verbose friends.
• Tweetburner - Tweetburner lets you track what happens with the links you share on Twitter.
• Twitterfone - Send messages to Twitter using voice.
• TweetWheel - Find out which of your Twitter friends know each other.
• Tweet Scan - Real-time Twitter search.
• Twhirl - Twhirl is a desktop client for twitter, based on the Adobe AIR platform.
• Hahlo - Twitter client for iPhone.
• TwitterFox - TwitterFox is a Firefox extension that notifies you of your friends’ statuses of Twitter.
• Twitterholic - Top 100 Twitterholics based on followers.

I’m pretty sure I’m missing a few important links in this list. But as you can see there are quite a few different applications whose livelihood depends on the success of Twitter. I’m also pretty sure that a few of the people who own these applications expect that they will be able to build a business on top of their Twitter application. Those people are playing a dangerous game.

I think it is very likely that the future will yield a Twitter crash. This crash could be caused by any number of factors. The Twitter infrastructure may become increasingly unreliable due to the volume of third party requests on the system. The crash could end up being a result of an altered Twitter API due to a change in architecture. Twitter might end up altering their terms of service, possibly in an attempt to make some money, thereby making some of these services unauthorized users. Twitter might be purchased by an entity that makes wholesale changes to all of the above. Or Twitter might end up failing and close down.

Many web2.0/social media people are highly enamored of Twitter. Those people will bristle at any suggestion that a Twitter crash may be coming. “Can’t happen.” they’re likely to say. Bigger and more popular services have changed in the ways I’ve mentioned above. Being a passionate supporter of a service does not shield the individual or the service from the winds of change.

I have this advice for the developers of the above services. Have your application live each day as if it was the last. Make sure you’re getting what you want out of Twitter today. You may be selling advertising via your service. You may be doing it as part of a viral marketing strategy. You may be doing it for love. Those that fall in the latter category stand to lose the least.

Heavy Twitter users should beware as well. You’ve got a lot of data floating around the web. And now that you’re into all these associated applications that data has gotten more spread out. Are you diluting your personal brand? Are you giving too many services too much information? What’s the risk of data loss or identity hijacking? These are rational things to think about.

I had a lot of fun with Twitter but I have recently become a Twitter quitter. There are no regrets on my part. But as I continue to watch the developments around Twitter I’ve come to believe that way too many people are putting way too much effort into something that they have absolutely no control over.