Twitter made waves when it snatched up Tweetie, a small company that makes Twitter-based apps for the Apple iPhone and Mac computers.  Along with its own proprietary app for the Blackberry and its search engine, acquired in 2008 from Summize, that gives Twitter a lot of first-party tools.

That has developers of third party apps afraid that Twitter is trying to consolidate its services and cut them out.

Not so says Twitter Platform Team boss Ryan Sarver.  He writes, "We will continue to focus on what is best for users and we will work together to make sure that we are creating more opportunities for the ecosystem on the whole. We will also admit our mistakes when they are made and the Blackberry client should never have been labeled 'official'. It has since been changed and you won't see that language used with Twitter clients in the future."

He says that the acquisition will help Twitter gain steam in general, which will be good for all Twitter app makers.  Tweetie, which was formerly offered for $2.99, will be dropped to the hot price of free.

Sarver did not rule out speculation that Twitter would look to acquire a URL shortener (like bit.ly) and photo uploader (like Twitpic) to complete a comprehensive portfolio of offerings.  Analysts say that the third party Twitter firms arose out of a lack in the base platform, and by bringing their features and apps inside the company, Twitter can take tighter control of its offerings and make more profit.

In other words, there's both good and bad to the recent Tweetie grab, and it's sure to be a lively topic of debate on the Twittersphere.