All posts tagged ‘Twitter’

File Under: APIs, Social, Web Services
Dec
21
2009

Twitter API Is Becoming Far More than Just an API for Twitter

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Twitter’s API has spawned hundreds of mashups and third party software apps, but now it’s growing even further — outside sites have begun mimicking an API to piggyback on Twitter clients.

It started last week with a clever hack by WordPress contributors which allows WordPress.com users to post and read their WordPress.com blogs through third-party Twitter apps like Tweetie 2 for the iPhone.

Now Tumblr has joined in on the fun, allowing you to post and read Tumblr blogs through any third-party Twitter app that allows you to change the API endpoint.

The last bit is key, since while both WordPress and Tumblr have mimicked the Twitter API, you still need to make sure your Twitter client can be manually pointed to the correct URL, i.e. tumblr.com or wordpress.com, rather than twitter.com.

We tested both the WordPress and Tumblr clones of the Twitter API using Tweetie 2 for the iPhone and had no problems setting up and connecting to either service. There are, however, some shortcomings — for example, if your WordPress of Tumblr stream is primarily photos, you won’t see much through the Twitter client. Also, because WordPress and Tumblr both offer infinitely more posting options than Twitter — for instance, uploading photos — the experience of either through a Twitter client is sub par. Still, if you’ve been looking for a good way to blog quick links or short posts on the go, the new API support combined with a mobile Twitter client makes an excellent option.

Dave Winer recently called the development third-party support for the Twitter API an open standard in the making. While we think he might be right, we’re not sure it makes it a good candidate for a de facto standard yet.

For one thing, Twitter is a private company with its own goals for its own API. In order to really become a standard, Twitter would need to freeze its API, ensuring that it doesn’t change. Since Twitter has been doing interesting (and sometimes backwards-incompatible) things with it, like adding geotagging support and changing how replies are handled, and we don’t want to see that stop.

There’s also a very good chance Twitter doesn’t want to freeze its API, which leaves the web with a proprietary API that could change at any given moment — hardly a stable platform on which to build the future of microblogging. In short, WordPress and Tumblr’s recent clones of the Twitter API are just hacks. What Winer and others are hoping is that the hacks will evolve into something more.

It’s important to remember two things. This isn’t the first time an API has been cloned, nor is it the first time a proprietary API has been proposed as a good candidate for a de facto standard. Social bookmarking site Ma.gnolia cloned the Delicious API to great success (before Ma.ngolia went offline) and the OAuth protocol emerged out of a desire to create an open, cross-site authentication platform that mimicked Flickr Auth and other systems.

The web wants a simple, cross-site API that allows basic functionality common to many popular web services — posting, reading and following.

We e-mailed web standards advocate Chris Messina and asked where he thinks this is heading. He points out that there’s already OpenMicroBlogging, an open standard that allows different messaging hubs to route microblogging messages between users in a near real-time time frame.

Unfortunately, OpenMicroBlogging has thus far failed to catch on. Which is why the Twitter API is appealing, because it has caught on and enjoys a wide ecosystem of mashups, desktop apps and mobile clients. It only makes sense that other publishing services — like WordPress and Tumblr — want to be involved in that ecosystem.

As Messina points out in his e-mail, and as has been argued by Dare Obasanjo’s post on 25hoursaday.com, this creates an interesting moral dilemma for Twitter. The company can either embrace this new growth and continue to nurture the efforts of the community, and thus cede total control over its own API, or just ignore it and continue developing its API with aims on improving its own business, even if it breaks the tools built by outside developers.

Whether that ecosystem will remain closely tied to Twitter or perhaps grow beyond it to some kind of standard remains to be seen. But in the mean time, at least you have yet another way to consume your favorite WordPress and Tumblr sites.

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File Under: APIs, Location, Social, Web Services
Nov
20
2009

Twitter Puts Geotagging Tools in Place

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Twitter has announced a new feature that will give users the ability to send their location with each tweet.

The new geotagging API tools are available only through the Twitter API, and are not part of Twitter.com just yet. So, if you’d like to post geodata with your tweets, you’ll need to use a third-party application that supports the new features. Expect updates to the most forward-looking clients soon.

The geodata tools are also opt-in, meaning that you’ll have to head to your account settings and check “enable geotagging” before any application is allowed to send geodata with your tweets. If broadcasting your location strikes you as an invitation to an Orwellian nightmare, just ignore the new settings.

Judging by the way Twitter has set up the API, the geotagging tools are intended mainly for mobile applications running on platforms like the iPhone or Android, both of which have GPS or similar sensors for detecting location and can offer geodata to applications. Approve the Twitter app of your choice to access your location and it can then send the geotags along to Twitter.

In addition to the obvious — the ability to search for nearby tweets — the added geo information opens up a whole new realm of Twitter mashups — travel guides, local music searches and most likely quite a few things no one has thought of yet.

It also serves as both a boon and a challenge to the various location-based games and services that have sprung up along Twitter’s coral reef. Services like Foursquare, Loopt and Gowalla, which exist as separate apps, but incorporate Twitter for passing status messages, will have the ability to geotag those status messages. Likewise, you could run a simple Twitter search for messages geotagged with the location of the restaurant you’re currently sitting in and get recommendations from other Twitter users about which menu items to try.

Of course given the opt-in nature of geotags (a good decision on Twitter’s part), searches looking at only geotagged tweets will likely be a minority sampling of what’s actually happening on Twitter.

Developers interested in using the new API in applications and mashups should check out the new documentation.

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File Under: Software & Tools
Nov
24
2008

Developer Rebuilds Twitter in a Week

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“Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology. We can make Twitter better than it was before. Better, stronger, faster.”

That’s the speech I imagine Niall Kennedy giving himself recently when he decided to rewrite Twitter’s front end using web best practices. The result is a read only Twitter that’s a little less pretty, but a whole lot more streamlined.

To start, Kennedy converted Twitter’s table layout to XHTML/CSS-based design. He also split the page load so that all those little avatar graphics are loaded asynchronously, which makes pages appear faster.

One of the larger undertakings was localizing (or is it localising?) the site. Kennedy had to choose common wording throughout the site and ensure nothing that would ever need translating was hard-coded.

Kennedy claims a 41% decrease in bandwidth and a much faster DOM footprint. It’s a geeky way of saying that TwitterFE is an improved Twitter.

Of course, the front end has never been Twitter’s biggest problem. It’s the back-end, with thousands of messages a second, that prompts the Fail Whale. In all, TwitterFE reminds of redesigning Craigslist. It seems like a great idea, but it ends up being a solution searching for a problem.

But as a case study, TwitterFE is extremely useful. Perhaps Kennedy will release his source code, which runs on Google App Engine, and we can all learn from his experience.

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File Under: Web Basics
Nov
4
2008

Nine Ways to Tweet the Election

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Twitter election tweetsIf you aren’t yet tired of hearing about the US presidential election, you have plenty of web options to get another dose of information. News sites will certainly be bouncing, but Twitter is already overflowing with ways to experience the election, no matter which candidate you support. In addition to the tools we mentioned earlier, here’s a breakdown for using Twitter to track the latest election-related tweets.

Drink from the firehose

If more is better, you need to keep your browser open to Twitter’s official election stream, which updates about once per second.

Using a non-iPhone mobile device? You might prefer Slandr’s election Tweet stream. It doesn’t auto-update and has fewer updates than the official version, but it’s still got plenty of eletion-ness.

The more advanced could choose their own keywords and use Twitter search to track the election terms of most interest. For example, track #votereport to see whether there are problem’s at the polls, or Ben & Jerry’s to see who’s getting free ice cream.

Vote for real, then vote for fake

It’s an understatement to say Twitter leans toward Obama. If you’d still like to add your voice to an inaccurate sampling, you can vote in TwitVote, a “mock opinion poll,” with emphasis on the mock. Currently the votes, which require a Twitter login, favor Obama six to one.

Similarly, a Twitter election map is entirely blue. The project uses “a few algorithms that parse many tweets for certain content,” then uses the location in the user’s profile. It’s a neat idea and a glimpse of who would win in a Twitter election. But expect more red states to show up on network maps tonight.

Follow the campaign parties

Yes, you can find both McCain and Obama on Twitter, though don’t expect to hear much from them. McCain hasn’t tweeted in over a week and Obama’s account is in full get-out-the-vote mode.

There are a couple places you can listen in on the campaign parties tonight, which should give an idea of the mood amongst each candidates closest supporters.

Obama randomly selected an active Twitter user to sit in the front row at his speech tonight in Chicago. Luckily that guy is also a Rails coder, so he naturally created a site for his tweets from the front row. Regardless of tonight’s outcome, expect heavy volume from Bruce Williams and his guest Damon Clinkscales.

Unfortunately, there isn’t the equivalent site for John McCain’s campaign, but a Twitter search for Biltmore, the hotel where McCain supporters will be, is already returning some results.

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File Under: Software & Tools
Oct
29
2008

6 Tools to Help You Get the Most Out of Twitter

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Twitter isn’t just a darling of nerd set anymore, everyone from political candidates to celebrities are rushing to get in on the micro-messaging fun. Perhaps more interesting though is how much developers love Twitter. Thanks to its very easy-to-use API, outside developers have built all sorts of mashups, add-ons and other Twitter-related tools.

It’s been a while since we checked in with the world of Twitter accessories and there are a number of great new services out there, all of which are well worth a look. Blogger Brian Solis recently published a very thorough round-up of Twitter tools, though his list is geared a bit more toward PR people trying to use Twitter to some end.

For those of us that just plain enjoy Twitter, here’s a few standout tools you might not be aware of that deserve a test drive:

  • TweetDeck — Written in Adobe Air (read: cross platform) Tweetdeck is fast becoming my favorite way to track Twitter. TweetDeck makes it really simple to sort and organize your Twitter stream.
  • Favrd — one of the easiest ways to see what your fellow Twitterers are enjoying.
  • Tweet Later — I’m not sure why you would want to schedule your tweets, but if you’ve ever want to, Tweet Later has you covered.
  • Tweetbeep — If you’re a fan of Google Alerts for tracking news, Tweetbeep is your Twitter-specific equivalent. Tweetbeep makes it easy to monitor conversations for any keywords you want; you can even track URLs showing up in tweets. Tweetbeep will send the updates via e-mail.
  • TwitterSnooze — Twitter is fun and addictive, but sometimes you need certain people to shut up. Everything should have a snooze button and TwitterSnooze adds one to Twitter. Use the service to snooze noisy users for a as long as you’d like.
  • Matt (Multiple Account Twitter Tweeting) — I regularly post to three different Twitter accounts (work, fun, etc) and this is the easiest way to do that from a single app. Pretty damn good for an app built in four days.

Naturally there are dozens, if not hundreds, of other useful Twitter tools out there. Let us know your must-haves in the comments below.

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