Like Google Labs and Facebook Prototypes before it, Twitter Labs will allow developers to test out new features for the site with a voluntary beta community prior to their official release. Not only that, but Labs would allow outside developers to create and work on add-ons and other features that could then become deeply integrated with Twitter itself, instead of just being relegated to external clients that use the API.

The news comes via the Future of Web Apps conference currently taking place in London, where Twitter engineer Britt Selvitelle made the announcement earlier today. Based on the announcement, it sounds like Twitter is planning something in between Mozilla’s Firefox add-ons and Google’s Labs playground for experimental features.

While this is undoubtedly good news for people looking to get something more out of Twitter, I’m wondering if it doesn’t run counter to the core idea behind the service’s success to date. What I like about Twitter is its simplicity, as opposed to the layers and complexity of Facebook. While browsing Facebook is a time-consuming, involved process for me, it’s easy to keep Twitter active in the background all day, popping in and out when the mood strikes while still easily disengaging when necessary.

Twitter add-ons and apps threaten to complicate the process. I dread the day when my tweet timeline is cluttered with survey results and invitations to try out such-and-such disguised personal data mining application. Perhaps I’m being overly fatalistic, but Facebook’s track record shows that such things are possible.

On the other hand, with enough oversight on the part of Twitter, and with responsible API usage, Twitter Labs could open the door to making the service perfectly suited for each individual user. Until evidence proves otherwise, though, I remain skeptical.

What do you think of this announcement?

I recently had the opportunity to talk with two Intuit staff members to talk about Thumbstrips, Fashion Your Firefox, developing for Mozilla, and Intuit Labs.

Tara Tarapata, Group Manager for the Intuit Innovation Lab, and Scott Williamson, Software Engineer and an early developer of Thumbstrips, both gave me the impression that Intuit is an organization staffed by passionate people who are trying to shake things up in software development.

While I did not mention Thumbstrips by name in my initial overview of Fashion Your Firefox, I’ve since come to regret the omission. Since downloading the add-on, it’s become an integral part of my Firefox browsing experience.

Put simply, it allows you to view your history as a visual filmstrip of thumbnails in a pane at the bottom of your browser window. Definitely saves you time time digging for that page you forgot to bookmark when you’re involved in a deep dive and can’t be expected to keep track of every little link that might prove useful. Tara pointed out other uses, including comparison shopping, bug-testing for web developers, and as a live screenshot demo reel for giving presentations.

The add-on itself is only the beginning of the story. If you’re involved in developing apps for Mozilla, a behind the scenes peek at how Thumbstrips became one of the most-downloaded add-ons available is particularly illuminating.

Thumbstrips took its first steps in the Intuit Innovation Labs, a breeding and testing ground for promising ideas and applications in development at Intuit. The Labs allow software end-users to become an integral part of the development community. According to Tara, the purpose of the space is to make sure that the applications that end up in the hands of users has the functionality that they actually need. Using the website’s “Count Me In” feature, you can sign up to become even more involved. You’ll get access to new ideas as they arrive, interact with Intuit software engineers in the development process, and help guide the future of Intuit Labs itself.

From the labs, Scott said the next step was getting listed on the official Mozilla add-ons page. Once they were listed, download numbers skyrocketed. Eventually, Thumbstrips became so popular that the Intuit team decided to apply to become a Recommended app. Yes, that is a developer-initiated process. Thumbstrips was accepted, and now enjoys regular rotation in and out of Mozilla’s Recommended apps.

The last step, the actual inclusion of Thumbstrips in the list of apps featured on Fashion Your Firefox, came as something of a surprise to the add-on’s development team. They’d heard about the launch of the new web app, and were curious to see what was available. Scott actually discovered Thumbstrips’ inclusion when he clicked to expand the “Digital Pack Rat” category. Since its inclusion, downloads of Thumbstrips have gone up 200-300%, up to 400+ daily. Clearly Mozilla’s initiative is sparking some interest.

What’s ahead for Thumbstrips?

Tara says they unfortunately can’t devote much more of their internal team’s time to the add-on, but that’s where the beauty of the Intuit Labs community lies. They hope to open source the software soon, handing it over to interested developers so that it will continue to grow thanks to the efforts of those who helped maked it a reality to begin with. And Thumbstrips is just the beginning. Tara, Scott, and the rest of the Intuit team hope to break new ground in allowing as much of their catalogue as possible to become open source once in-house development stops. With the help of the Intuit Labs community, this could ensure that applications live on, evolving to meet user needs well beyond the lifespan of traditional, privately developed software.

Thumbstrips is available as a free download here. To learn more about or become a part of Intuit Labs, visit intuitlabs.com.

You could have it custom programmed or even develop it yourself but that takes coding skills, as well as a considerable investment of time and money. Imagine if there was a free tool you could use to visually draw out your business process and an application would automatically be created to manage it – no coding required.

That’s the premise behind the newly released Iceberg 2 Development Platform from the folks at Dublin based Iceberg.

Iceberg has been on the WWD radar for a while now, and why not – a web based platform for building and distributing applications is right up our alley.

Iceberg provides a drag and drop form builder which makes creating your data entry points simple and the workflow and process generation tool (pictured below) uses a visual flowchart like interface to create decision trees and other action and event triggers automatically.

I’ve had a couple of hours of hands on time with Iceberg and it really is remarkably easy to put together a functional application in a very short period of time. Iceberg has built in modules for calendaring, reporting, email integration, file management and more to tap into which really streamlines development.

While it is true that there is no visible code, some familiarity with programming concepts is required, or at least very helpful. As easy as the visual process editor is to use, it still helps to understand how pieces fit together and how data flows through your app. The online help is good and the video tutorials are plentiful and they give you a good overview of how Iceberg works. Developers will pick it up easily, others may need a bit of ramp-up time to learn how to create an application.

This video shows a vacation application being built in Iceberg. It’s sped up but the real time development time was about an hour.

An Iceberg app can work independently or they can be linked together for greater interaction. Soon users will be able to submit their own creations to the Application Directory / Exchange to share or sell. I am eager to see what folks come up with.

As exciting as all this is, what really appeals to me as a Web Worker is how Iceberg can interact with other applications using web services. Use Iceberg as an intermediary between your CRM and your billing for example. Let it mash together your data, create additional processes, generate reports, email results – the possibilities are endless.

Iceberg is a downloadable web based platform that installs on a Windows machine for development or on an IIS server for deployment. In an age where ‘Software as a Service’ is becoming the new standard, it is interesting to see this being released as stand alone software. A hosted solution is apparently in the works.

Iceberg is a free download for the first 5 users with a $200 per user add-on charge above that which makes it quite affordable for small team use. It’s also available for free for non-profit use.

Is there a place for DIY application development? Could Iceberg be the platform for your next Enterprise App?