If there was a social media pecking order, we at The Practice believe that Twitter would reign supreme. Facebook’s undoubtedly best for social connections, and probably brands too, but Twitter– well, it definitely has the edge in terms of offering immediacy, world news, and interaction.

The Practice can’t help but feel though, that while Twitter’s a great platform for the sociable, the big boys behind the micro blogging site are being anything but, in their latest move. Only last week, Twitter revealed that alongside LinkedIn and Instagram, Tumblr is the latest social network to be banned from riding on the back of Twitter’s social graph, or, for want of a better phrase, it’s network of interconnections between social platforms. This means that Tumblr’s been banned from letting Twitter users search for their friends on the site. Now, when new users create a Tumblr account and seek out followers, they’ll only be able to search for their Facebook and Gmail contacts.

This has definitely come as a blow to Tumblr, whose syndication feature is responsible for millions of tweets. The blogging site was one of Twitter’s first partners, even enabling Twitter cards over 70 million blogs in the collaboration’s initial stages. Tumblr responded to the news stating: ‘Given our history of embracing their platform, this is especially upsetting.’ So much for a display of friendship!

But of course, Twitter’s always going to cover their own back if they want to maintain key advertisers on the site. If you think about it, Twitter’s far more useful to Tumblr or Instagram users for example because all three platforms share a common denominator; their users tend to be a lot more active, posting and uploading in real time.

Twitter knows this, and they know that if their users and their friends can offload themselves easily to other sites, this means less focus on them and any sponsored content. The site’s identified its threats, and acted accordingly. (And in case you were wondering, Pinterest is for now still on the approved list!)

Twitter’s latest move isn’t unlike Google’s, who, in 2008 banned Facebook from accessing it’s Google Contacts API feature, meaning that users couldn’t import their email addresses from Gmail to their Facebook profile. We worry about what’s next. According to some sources, it’s predicted that the next platform to feel Twitter’s force will be “social news magazine”, Flipboard, who currently use Twitter’s API to bring articles from a user’s feed and arrange them in one easy to read format.

At The Practice, we don’t necessarily find the interconnectedness between social platforms particularly useful. However, it’s a real loss for smaller sites such as Tumblr, who’ve invested in and relied upon larger parent sites. Whether they’ve been riding off of Twitter, Facebook, or Google +, it’s clear that the three big guns wish to hold the monopoly, and keep it that way.

Do you use a variety of social media platforms? And do you think that Twitter’s latest move indicates one of many which could potentially stop smaller sites from ever taking off? We’d love for you to share your thoughts. Please tweet to and follow us @PracticeDigital and join in the conversation on Facebook.