[twitter-dev] Unfollow Those Who Don't Follow Back - Still Against The Rules?

[Dewald Pretorius]

I have now in quick succession seen two glowing reviews of Twitter
follower management tools that enable people to, in bulk, unfollow
those who don't follow them back, plus several other features.

The one review was on TechCrunch and the other one on ReadWriteWeb.

Now, according to Jesse Stay's experience and if I remember correctly,
Dossy's experience, offering "unfollow those who don't follow back" is
squarely against the Twitter rules.

Is that still the case?

If so, perhaps Twitter should reach out to the major tech blogs and
educate them on the Twitter rules, so that they don't give publicity
to applications that violate the rules. If something is glowingly
reviewed in one of those publications, it's not far-fetched to assume
that people won't check whether using those apps could get their
Twitter accounts suspended.

And if it's not against the rules anymore, that will be good to know
also. It's a feature that's requested daily from my experience.

[twitter-dev] Re: A PubSubHubbub hub for Twitter

[Dewald Pretorius]

I second this too.

On Mar 1, 7:08 pm, Julien  wrote:
> Ola!
>
> I know this s some kind of recurring topic for this mailing list. I
> know all the heat around it, but I think that Twitter's new strategy
> concerning their firehose is a good occasion to push them to implement
> the PubSubHubbub protocol.
>
> Superfeedr makes RSS feeds realtime. We host hubs for several big
> publishers, including Tumblr, Posterous, HuffingtonPost, Gawker and
> several others.
>
> We want to make one for Twitter. Help us assessing the need and
> convince Twitter they need one (hosted by us or even them, if they'd
> rather go down that route) :
>
> http://bit.ly/hub4twitter
>
> Any comment/suggestion is more than welcome.

[twitter-dev] Re: forcing api.twitter.com resources - tomorrow

[Dewald Pretorius]

Raffi,

Can you please clarify how and/or if OAuth will be affected.

My OAuth token and authorize requests also go to twitter.com, not
api.twitter.com.

On Mar 2, 4:35 pm, Ryan Alford  wrote:
> Does OAuth go to the api.twitter.com?  The API documentation still has the 4
> OAuth methods going to twitter.com.
>
> http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-oauth-request_token
> http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-oauth-authorize
> http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-oauth-authenticate
> http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-oauth-access_token
>
> Ryan
>
> On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> > hi all.
>
> > tomorrow we're going to put an operational change in place that will force
> > all traffic that is addressed tohttp://api.twitter.comto go to instances
> > that are specifically serving api.twitter.com code.  what does this mean
> > for you?  if you're only using documented api.twitter.com methods (and not
> > calling any undocumented methods that have been designed to support
> > twitter.com), then this means absolutely nothing to you :P
>
> > just giving a heads up - we'll be actively monitoring the list and we'll
> > try to be in IRC when it happens in case there are any hiccups.
>
> > --
> > Raffi Krikorian
> > Twitter Platform Team
> >http://twitter.com/raffi

[twitter-dev] Re: forcing api.twitter.com resources - tomorrow

[Dewald Pretorius]

Raffi,

There appears to be ground for confusion here. I'm sure some folks are
still sending some API calls to twitter.com.

Could you please put up a page that explains which calls *must* go to
api.twitter.com, and after tomorrow won't work on twitter.com? And
vice versa, which calls must go to twitter.com, and won't work on
api.twitter.com.


On Mar 2, 6:03 pm, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> anything going to twitter.com (and not api.twitter.com), will stick with
> twitter.com.
>
> On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 1:23 PM, Dewald Pretorius 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Raffi,
>
> > Can you please clarify how and/or if OAuth will be affected.
>
> > My OAuth token and authorize requests also go to twitter.com, not
> > api.twitter.com.
>
> > On Mar 2, 4:35 pm, Ryan Alford  wrote:
> > > Does OAuth go to the api.twitter.com?  The API documentation still has
> > the 4
> > > OAuth methods going to twitter.com.
>
> > >http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-oauth-request_token
> > > <http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-oauth-request_token
> > >http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-oauth-authorize
> > > <http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-oauth-authorize>
> >http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-oauth-authenticate
> > > <http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-oauth-authenticate>
> >http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-oauth-access_token
>
> > > <http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-oauth-access_token
> > >Ryan
>
> > > On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Raffi Krikorian 
> > wrote:
> > > > hi all.
>
> > > > tomorrow we're going to put an operational change in place that will
> > force
> > > > all traffic that is addressed tohttp://api.twitter.comtogo to
> > instances
> > > > that are specifically serving api.twitter.com code.  what does this
> > mean
> > > > for you?  if you're only using documented api.twitter.com methods (and
> > not
> > > > calling any undocumented methods that have been designed to support
> > > > twitter.com), then this means absolutely nothing to you :P
>
> > > > just giving a heads up - we'll be actively monitoring the list and
> > we'll
> > > > try to be in IRC when it happens in case there are any hiccups.
>
> > > > --
> > > > Raffi Krikorian
> > > > Twitter Platform Team
> > > >http://twitter.com/raffi
>
> --
> Raffi Krikorian
> Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/raffi

[twitter-dev] Monday's Dev Meeting

[Dewald Pretorius]

Has anyone published notes about the meeting somewhere?

[twitter-dev] Re: Need a "report app" button, something isn't quite right with Oauth....

[Dewald Pretorius]

Why would you want Tweetie or TweetDeck reported and disabled because
some users use it to post spammy tweets??

On Mar 4, 5:23 pm, Tammy Fennell  wrote:
> Hi, this is tammy from MarketMeTweet... been speaking extensively with
> Brian Sutorius about this, but wanted to post it here too. Right now
> apps are going inactive that use OAUTH and sometimes it seems there's
> no rhyme or reason. there's no well written rules, nothing.  Truth is
> it's going to get even harder to police so why not do it the way you
> deal with spammy twitter accounts? Just put a "report app" next the
> "from app" under the tweet. Let it be user policed. Much easier for
> you!  If developers start getting their apps shut down willy nilly,
> people are going to stop developing for twitter, simple as that...
>
> Other idea is to do certified apps, and push the heck out of those
>
> Let me know if i can be of any help!

[twitter-dev] 401 on direct_messages using OAuth

[Dewald Pretorius]

When paging through direct messages using OAuth, every now and then
one gets a 401 HTTP response without an accompanying error message
from Twitter, meaning, there is no error construct that would usually
say, "Could not authenticate you," or "Invalid/used nonce". Just
nothing.

This happens in a completely unpredictable manner. You sometimes get
it on page=1, sometimes on page=4, etc. And with the very next attempt
of the exact same call, you get the list and a 200 OK.

Has anyone else experienced the same?

[twitter-dev] Re: Is this legit Twitter API?

[Dewald Pretorius]

Taylor,

I don't think Twitter should develop its API in accordance with, or
let API design decisions be influenced by deficiencies in third-party
libraries.

Your API should adhere to specs, and third-party libraries should
follow suit.

The OAuth spec has said from Version 1: "Parameters are sorted by
name, using lexicographical byte value ordering. If two or more
parameters share the same name, they are sorted by their value."

On Mar 11, 4:27 pm, Taylor Singletary 
wrote:
> It wasn't a factor in this particular design decision, but the reality
> is that the vast majority of OAuth libraries out there are not to
> spec.
>
> Taylor Singletary
> Developer Advocate, Twitterhttp://twitter.com/episod
>
> On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Dossy Shiobara  wrote:
> > So, poor OAuth implementations are forcing a poor technical design
> > decision in Twitter's product?
>
> > Tread carefully ...
>
> > On 3/11/10 1:38 PM, Taylor Singletary wrote:
> >> While it's a standard to use multiple values for the same key in this
> >> way, there are a gigantic amount of OAuth libraries out there that
> >> don't account for it and will botch the request as a result.
>
> > --
> > Dossy Shiobara              | do...@panoptic.com |http://dossy.org/
> > Panoptic Computer Network   |http://panoptic.com/
> >  "He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
> >    folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)

[twitter-dev] Re: OAuth POST gets 401 with no data/error message returned

[Dewald Pretorius]

Is this issue perhaps related to the one I raised two days ago?

http://bit.ly/9dG7jk

On Mar 12, 4:55 pm, Taylor Singletary 
wrote:
> Can you present an example of you POSTing to a resource? An example
> signature base string of what you're trying to accomplish and the
> example POST body you are sending?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Taylor Singletary
> Developer Advocate, Twitterhttp://twitter.com/episod
>
> On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 12:22 PM, SM  wrote:
> > My desktop app uses Adobe AIR with Javascript. I'm using the OAuth
> > javascript library from here:
>
> >    http://oauth.googlecode.com/svn/code/javascript/
>
> > I am able to POST with xAuth to get the token/token_secret. I am then
> > able to GET timelines using the received tokens. However, so far I am
> > unable to POST to send updates or create/destroy favorites. When I
> > compare the Authorization header my code generates with the one you
> > can generate manually at this site:
>
> >    http://hueniverse.com/2008/10/beginners-guide-to-oauth-part-iv-signin...
>
> > they are identical. Nevertheless, I am getting a 401 status back but
> > no JSON data telling me what the error is.
>
> > First question: any idea what might be going on here?
> > Second question: Under what conditions would one get a 401 status, but
> > no data describing the error?
>
> > Stumped!

[twitter-dev] Re: OAuth POST gets 401 with no data/error message returned

[Dewald Pretorius]

Taylor,

Under what circumstances does your system return a 401 HTTP status
code but does not include a properly formed XML or JSON error
construct to explain the 401?

Find that, and I think you will find the problem.


On Mar 12, 4:22 pm, SM  wrote:
> My desktop app uses Adobe AIR with Javascript. I'm using the OAuth
> javascript library from here:
>
>    http://oauth.googlecode.com/svn/code/javascript/
>
> I am able to POST with xAuth to get the token/token_secret. I am then
> able to GET timelines using the received tokens. However, so far I am
> unable to POST to send updates or create/destroy favorites. When I
> compare the Authorization header my code generates with the one you
> can generate manually at this site:
>
>    http://hueniverse.com/2008/10/beginners-guide-to-oauth-part-iv-signin...
>
> they are identical. Nevertheless, I am getting a 401 status back but
> no JSON data telling me what the error is.
>
> First question: any idea what might be going on here?
> Second question: Under what conditions would one get a 401 status, but
> no data describing the error?
>
> Stumped!

[twitter-dev] 403 on statuses longer than 140 characters

[Dewald Pretorius]

In the announcement, Mark said, "...in the case that a long status can
be reduced to under 140 characters by shortening URLs.  In this case
we return a 403 but successfully create the status."

Any chance that you can instead return a 200?

Returning a 403 while you actually created the status will cause
confusion.

[twitter-dev] Re: Someone managed to get me to follow them w/o my intervention (@johnnymatosj)

[Dewald Pretorius]

His website points to some viral marketing stuff. Does the auto
following perhaps have something to do with some viral marketing
campaign that requires following on Twitter, or asks for Twitter
credentials?

On Mar 18, 5:57 pm, jmathai  wrote:
> Anyone seen this?  User @johnnymatosj started showing up in my feed
> and I checked and oddly enough I was following him.  I never heard of
> him so there is some bug or he got a hold of my password (this account
> hasn't added any oauth apps).  I did a search and saw that others have
> had similar issues.
>
> http://search.twitter.com/search?q=johnnymatosj

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[twitter-dev] Re: Most popular tweets in the search API

[Dewald Pretorius]

Taylor,

In terms of this change, you need to separate Twitter Search from the
Twitter Search API in your minds.

Do with Twitter Search (the web interface) what you like. Make popular
the default if you want.

But, don't decide on behalf of the developers (the consumers of the
Twitter Search API) that popular is the default that we want. In most
cases it probably isn't. In my case it definitely isn't, otherwise I
would have asked for something like that a long time ago.

In other words, don't force something down our throats just because
you think it's a cool idea.

Leave the default as is. Make "popular" an option that we can use if
we want to. That's good developer service, because it doesn't create
additional work for us if we want to remain with the status quo, and
it gives us additional options if we want to use them.

On Mar 19, 2:39 pm, Taylor Singletary 
wrote:
> Even further clarifications:
>
> Top Tweets are coming to make search results even more relevant. We'll be
> tuning our ranking algorithms with gusto. Some people will naturally resist
> these changes. Approach with a zen mind.
>
> When we launch this new feature for the API, it will be opt-in for a
> transitory period, but the search.twitter.com site will come with these
> results already baked in. Before implementing in your own applications,
> you'll be able to see the top results for your favorite queries your self.
>
> The Search team is always working on ways of making results more
> relevant. We recognize that not everyone wants search results with
> algorithmic ranking of tweets, but we like what we've come up with and we
> think you'll like it too.
>
> Taylor Singletary
> Developer Advocate, Twitterhttp://twitter.com/episod
>
> On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 10:11 AM, davidzimm  wrote:
> > Bad idea.
>
> > 1) reduces the credibility and thereby the value of the results in
> > twitter search
> > 2) who determines which is popular- no matter how you try to calculate
> > this, someone will figure it out and spam the results.
> > 3) people are used to searching twitter for breaking news, rather than
> > "authoritative" results. You'll have to change user expectations.
> > 4) perhaps this can be an "advanced" setting, rather than a default
> > practice.
>
> > On Mar 19, 10:37 am, Taylor Singletary 
> > wrote:
> > > Hi Developers!
>
> > > The Search team is working on a beta project that returns the most
> > popular
> > > tweets for a query, rather than only the most recent tweets. This is a
> > beta
> > > project, but an important first step to surface the most popular tweets
> > for
> > > users searching Twitter.
>
> > > You can expect many improvements as we tune and tweak our algorithms, but
> > we
> > > want to give everyone a heads up so we can go over the implications for
> > > those consuming the search API.
>
> > > --- New attribute in the payload ---
>
> > > First of all there will be a new attribute in search result payloads.
> > Since
> > > some tweets are popular for a given query while others are simply the
> > most
> > > recent results that match the query, we are adding a "metadata" section
> > to
> > > specify the type of result that a given result represents.
>
> > > So for a popular tweet the "result_type" in the "metadata" section will
> > have
> > > the value "popular".
>
> > > Example of a result with a popular tweet:
>
> > > {
> > >     "results":
> > >     [
> > >         {
> > >             "profile_image_url":"
> >http://a1.twimg.com/profile_images/668144840/Elizabeth_Web_normal.jpg";,
> > >             "created_at":"Mon,15 Feb 2010 19:55:18 +",
> > >             "from_user":"Elizabeth",
> > >             "to_user_id":null,
> > >             "text":"It's the Griswold family trip to Joshua Tree Park!
> > > @rsarver @Devon @Jess @noradio @kevinweil",
> > >             "id":9153622261,
> > >             "from_user_id":106309,
> > >             "geo":null,
> > >             "iso_language_code":"en",
> > >             "source":"http://www.atebits.com/";
> > > rel="nofollow">Tweetie",
> > >             "metadata":
> > >             {
> > >                 "result_type": "popular"
> > >             }
> > >         }
>
> > >       /* etc ... */
>
> > > }
>
> > > Results that are not popular and represent simply recent query matches
> > will
> > > have the "result_type" in the "metadata" section with a value of
> > "recent".
>
> > > Example of a recent result:
>
> > > {
> > >     "results":
> > >     [
> > >         {
> > >             "profile_image_url":"
> >http://a3.twimg.com/profile_images/641350353/TimCheekFinger_normal.jpg";,
> > >             "created_at":"Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:42:45 +",
> > >             "from_user":"timhaines",
> > >             "to_user_id":97776,
> > >             "text":"@noradio Nice spot.",
> > >             "id":9160218997,
> > >             "from_user_id":159881,
> > >             "to_user":"noradio",
> > >             "geo":null,
> > >             "iso_language_code":"it",
> > >        

[twitter-dev] 403 on duplicate post - when?

[Dewald Pretorius]

When is the change going live to return a 403 response code on a
duplicate post?

I'm still getting the old behavior. A 200 OK is returned with the
details of the latest successful tweet on the account.

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[twitter-dev] Re: 403 on duplicate post - when?

[Dewald Pretorius]

Yes, I just tried it again.

URL: https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json

Headers:

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:09:39 GMT
Server: hi
Status: 200 OK
X-Transaction: 1269292179-62279-30903
ETag: "05ef33cb30cec1cfa0c5887d4862c9df"
Last-Modified: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:09:39 GMT
X-Runtime: 0.26340
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 1274
Pragma: no-cache
X-Revision: DEV
Expires: Tue, 31 Mar 1981 05:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, pre-check=0, post-
check=0
Set-Cookie: guest_id=1269292179683; path=/
Set-Cookie: lang=en; path=/
Set-Cookie: [snipped]
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Connection: close

The  and  returned were the latest successful tweet, not the
duplicate text I was trying to post.

On Mar 22, 6:08 pm, Mark McBride  wrote:
> On api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json?
>
>   ---Mark
>
> http://twitter.com/mccv
>
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > When is the change going live to return a 403 response code on a
> > duplicate post?
>
> > I'm still getting the old behavior. A 200 OK is returned with the
> > details of the latest successful tweet on the account.
>
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to twitter-development-talk+
> > unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE
> > ME" as the subject.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

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[twitter-dev] Re: 403 on duplicate post - when?

[Dewald Pretorius]

I will email the details to a...@twitter.com, so be on the look out for
a ticket from me.

On Mar 22, 6:27 pm, Mark McBride  wrote:
> I just tried it and got a 403.  Can you give me a screen name you're using,
> the data posted, and the data returned?
>
>   ---Mark
>
> http://twitter.com/mccv
>
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 2:14 PM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > Yes, I just tried it again.
>
> > URL:https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json
>
> > Headers:
>
> > Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:09:39 GMT
> > Server: hi
> > Status: 200 OK
> > X-Transaction: 1269292179-62279-30903
> > ETag: "05ef33cb30cec1cfa0c5887d4862c9df"
> > Last-Modified: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:09:39 GMT
> > X-Runtime: 0.26340
> > Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
> > Content-Length: 1274
> > Pragma: no-cache
> > X-Revision: DEV
> > Expires: Tue, 31 Mar 1981 05:00:00 GMT
> > Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, pre-check=0, post-
> > check=0
> > Set-Cookie: guest_id=1269292179683; path=/
> > Set-Cookie: lang=en; path=/
> > Set-Cookie: [snipped]
> > Vary: Accept-Encoding
> > Connection: close
>
> > The  and  returned were the latest successful tweet, not the
> > duplicate text I was trying to post.
>
> > On Mar 22, 6:08 pm, Mark McBride  wrote:
> > > On api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json?
>
> > >   ---Mark
>
> > >http://twitter.com/mccv
>
> > > On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Dewald Pretorius 
> > wrote:
> > > > When is the change going live to return a 403 response code on a
> > > > duplicate post?
>
> > > > I'm still getting the old behavior. A 200 OK is returned with the
> > > > details of the latest successful tweet on the account.
>
> > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to twitter-development-talk+
> > > > unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words
> > "REMOVE
> > > > ME" as the subject.- Hide quoted text -
>
> > > - Show quoted text -
>
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to twitter-development-talk+
> > unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE
> > ME" as the subject.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

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[twitter-dev] Re: 403 on duplicate post - when?

[Dewald Pretorius]

Ticket #915557

On Mar 22, 6:27 pm, Mark McBride  wrote:
> I just tried it and got a 403.  Can you give me a screen name you're using,
> the data posted, and the data returned?
>
>   ---Mark
>
> http://twitter.com/mccv
>
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 2:14 PM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > Yes, I just tried it again.
>
> > URL:https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json
>
> > Headers:
>
> > Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:09:39 GMT
> > Server: hi
> > Status: 200 OK
> > X-Transaction: 1269292179-62279-30903
> > ETag: "05ef33cb30cec1cfa0c5887d4862c9df"
> > Last-Modified: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:09:39 GMT
> > X-Runtime: 0.26340
> > Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
> > Content-Length: 1274
> > Pragma: no-cache
> > X-Revision: DEV
> > Expires: Tue, 31 Mar 1981 05:00:00 GMT
> > Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, pre-check=0, post-
> > check=0
> > Set-Cookie: guest_id=1269292179683; path=/
> > Set-Cookie: lang=en; path=/
> > Set-Cookie: [snipped]
> > Vary: Accept-Encoding
> > Connection: close
>
> > The  and  returned were the latest successful tweet, not the
> > duplicate text I was trying to post.
>
> > On Mar 22, 6:08 pm, Mark McBride  wrote:
> > > On api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json?
>
> > >   ---Mark
>
> > >http://twitter.com/mccv
>
> > > On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Dewald Pretorius 
> > wrote:
> > > > When is the change going live to return a 403 response code on a
> > > > duplicate post?
>
> > > > I'm still getting the old behavior. A 200 OK is returned with the
> > > > details of the latest successful tweet on the account.
>
> > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to twitter-development-talk+
> > > > unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words
> > "REMOVE
> > > > ME" as the subject.- Hide quoted text -
>
> > > - Show quoted text -
>
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to twitter-development-talk+
> > unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE
> > ME" as the subject.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

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[twitter-dev] Re: 403 on duplicate post - when?

[Dewald Pretorius]

Mark,

Here is what appears to happen.

When you try and duplicate the newest tweet (N), you get the expected
new behavior with a 403 and "Status is a duplicate".

When you try and duplicate tweet N-1, you get the old behavior with
200 OK and the details of tweet N.

I have not tested tweet N-2, N-3, etc.

On Mar 22, 6:27 pm, Mark McBride  wrote:
> I just tried it and got a 403.  Can you give me a screen name you're using,
> the data posted, and the data returned?
>
>   ---Mark
>
> http://twitter.com/mccv
>
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 2:14 PM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > Yes, I just tried it again.
>
> > URL:https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json
>
> > Headers:
>
> > Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:09:39 GMT
> > Server: hi
> > Status: 200 OK
> > X-Transaction: 1269292179-62279-30903
> > ETag: "05ef33cb30cec1cfa0c5887d4862c9df"
> > Last-Modified: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:09:39 GMT
> > X-Runtime: 0.26340
> > Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
> > Content-Length: 1274
> > Pragma: no-cache
> > X-Revision: DEV
> > Expires: Tue, 31 Mar 1981 05:00:00 GMT
> > Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, pre-check=0, post-
> > check=0
> > Set-Cookie: guest_id=1269292179683; path=/
> > Set-Cookie: lang=en; path=/
> > Set-Cookie: [snipped]
> > Vary: Accept-Encoding
> > Connection: close
>
> > The  and  returned were the latest successful tweet, not the
> > duplicate text I was trying to post.
>
> > On Mar 22, 6:08 pm, Mark McBride  wrote:
> > > On api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json?
>
> > >   ---Mark
>
> > >http://twitter.com/mccv
>
> > > On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Dewald Pretorius 
> > wrote:
> > > > When is the change going live to return a 403 response code on a
> > > > duplicate post?
>
> > > > I'm still getting the old behavior. A 200 OK is returned with the
> > > > details of the latest successful tweet on the account.
>
> > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to twitter-development-talk+
> > > > unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words
> > "REMOVE
> > > > ME" as the subject.- Hide quoted text -
>
> > > - Show quoted text -
>
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to twitter-development-talk+
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[twitter-dev] Re: Generating oauth_signature?

[Dewald Pretorius]

Is this what you're looking for?

http://php.net/manual/en/book.oauth.php

On Mar 21, 3:32 pm, KPL  wrote:
> Hello guys,
>
> I want to know if there's any function in PHP with which one can
> generate oauth_signature directly without using a library?
>
> I have tried to use JMathai's  and Abraham's libraries for this
> purpose, but failed to do so.
>
> Help will be really appreciated.
>
> Regards,
> Kapeel S

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[twitter-dev] Re: Strange streaming/search behaviour

[Dewald Pretorius]

I wonder what the real person behind that account, Casie Stewart, will
feel and think if she knew that Twitter has classified her account as
"low-quality", or rather, has classified her obviously human-finger-
driven contribution to Twitter via TweetDeck and the web interface, as
too inferior to include in the search results. Yes, I know. That may
not be the message you want to send, but that is the message that you
do send.

http://twitter.com/casiestewart
http://casiestewart.com/
http://twitpic.com/photos/casiestewart

On Mar 24, 7:15 pm, John Kalucki  wrote:
> That account is considered "low-quality" due to sketchy activity. It will
> not show in Search or Streaming, except in response to a follow=14661313
> type query.
>
> http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Streaming-API-Documentation#ResultQuality
>
> -John Kaluckihttp://twitter.com/jkalucki
> Infrastructure, Twitter Inc.
>
> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Peter Kieltyka 
>
>
> > wrote:
> > Hey guys,
>
> > I've run into an issue while building my app that uses the Twitter
> > Streaming API for some users. I found that for some public accounts
> > none of their tweets go through the streaming API.
>
> > For example: @casiestewart
>
> > Her profile is public, but try to find her tweets in the stream, or
> > evenhttp://search.twitter.com/search?q=casiestewartyou won't see
> > anything from her directly.
>
> > My hypothesis was that when she first made her account she had it
> > protected, then unprotected it and the streaming servers still think
> > she's protected. But I tried this with a new account and it didn't
> > seem to be correct -- unless though there is is a bug from the past.
>
> > Any ideas? Thanks.
>
> > Peter
>
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to twitter-development-talk+
> > unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE
> > ME" as the subject.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

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[twitter-dev] Bulk User Lookups

[Dewald Pretorius]

I just want to say thank you for the new users/lookup API method, and
for removing the secondary limits.

It has improved the response times in relevant areas of my app by
orders of magnitude.

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[twitter-dev] Re: Streaming API -- filtering with punctuation

[Dewald Pretorius]

Ed,

For app side filtering, you may want to look at Sphinx Search:

http://www.sphinxsearch.com/

On Mar 26, 2:41 pm, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky"  wrote:
> On 03/26/2010 10:32 AM, John Kalucki wrote:
>
> > The combinatorics don't work out here until we offer boolean AND. Tokens are
> > thrown against a HashMap to determine delivery. It's not really feasible to
> > also throw arbitrary combinations of tokens against the HashMap. If we ever
> > support AND, then you could search for ow AND ly.
>
> > You'll have to over-request and filter on your end.
>
> This may have to wait till Chirp, but as long as we're on the subject of
> "filtering at the consumer end", how good is *Cassandra* at that sort of
> filtering, relative to all the other databases, NoSQL and "traditional"
> ACID-compliant RDBMS? And how good is Cassandra relative to Hadoop?
>
> I've been thinking PostgreSQL in my designs, mostly because it's the one
> I know best, it's solid as a rock and I have friends who will disown me
> if I use MySQL. ;-) But using the same DB as Twitter has an appeal to it
> just because you *do* use it. And, of course, because NoSQL databases
> are cool and geeky. ;-)

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[twitter-dev] Re: Upcoming changes to the way status IDs are sequenced

[Dewald Pretorius]

It's really bad application design practice to assign any significance
to the primary key of an entity, except for a means to uniquely
identify each member of the entity.


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[twitter-dev] Re: Upcoming changes to the way status IDs are sequenced

[Dewald Pretorius]

Mark,

It's extremely important where you have two bots that reply to each
others' tweets. With incorrectly sorted tweets, you get conversations
that look completely unnatural.

On Apr 1, 1:39 pm, Mark McBride  wrote:
> Just out of curiosity, what applications are you building that require
> sub-second sorting resolution for tweets?
>
>   ---Mark
>
> http://twitter.com/mccv
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 11:01 PM, Aki  wrote:
> > It actually makes sense to use tweet ID to sort tweets, because
> > timestamp is not a valid source of information for accurate sorting.
> > It is a very common case to have multiple tweets posted at the exact
> > same second, and it is not possible to reproduce the correct ordering
> > of tweets on the client side. This can be improved by having better
> > precision for timestamp (maybe milliseconds), but it is still possible
> > to get tweets posted at the exact same milliseconds (although it is
> > very rare).
>
> > If Twitter really needs to change the tweet ID scheme, I think better
> > solution for sorting is required to be provided through API.
>
> > On Mar 27, 7:41 am, Taylor Singletary 
> > wrote:
> > > Hi Developers,
>
> > > It's no secret that Twitter is growing exponentially. The tweets keep
> > coming
> > > with ever increasing velocity, thanks in large part to your great
> > > applications.
>
> > > Twitter has adapted to the increasing number of tweets in ways that have
> > > affected you in the past: We moved from 32 bit unsigned integers to
> > 64-bit
> > > unsigned integers for status IDs some time ago. You all weathered that
> > storm
> > > with ease. The tweetapoclypse was averted, and the tweets kept flowing.
>
> > > Now we're reaching the scalability limit of our current tweet ID
> > generation
> > > scheme. Unlike the previous tweet ID migrations, the solution to the
> > current
> > > issue is significantly different. However, in most cases the new approach
> > we
> > > will take will not result in any noticeable differences to you the
> > developer
> > > or your users.
>
> > > We are planning to replace our current sequential tweet ID generation
> > > routine with a simple, more scalable solution. IDs will still be 64-bit
> > > unsigned integers. However, this new solution is no longer guaranteed to
> > > generate sequential IDs.  Instead IDs will be derived based on time: the
> > > most significant bits being sourced from a timestamp and the least
> > > significant bits will be effectively random.
>
> > > Please don't depend on the exact format of the ID. As our infrastructure
> > > needs evolve, we might need to tweak the generation algorithm again.
>
> > > If you've been trying to divine meaning from status IDs aside from their
> > > role as a primary key, you won't be able to anymore. Likewise for usage
> > of
> > > IDs in mathematical operations -- for instance, subtracting two status
> > IDs
> > > to determine the number of tweets in between will no longer be possible.
>
> > > For the majority of applications we think this scheme switch will be a
> > > non-event. Before implementing these changes, we'd like to know if your
> > > applications currently depend on the sequential nature of IDs. Do you
> > depend
> > > on the density of the tweet sequence being constant?  Are you trying to
> > > analyze the IDs as anything other than opaque, ordered identifiers? Aside
> > > for guaranteed sequential tweet ID ordering, what APIs can we provide you
> > to
> > > accomplish your goals?
>
> > > Taylor Singletary
> > > Developer Advocate, Twitterhttp://twitter.com/episod
>
> > --
> > To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] Re: Upcoming changes to the way status IDs are sequenced

[Dewald Pretorius]

Ed,

I dunno. Maybe sub-second sorting resolution for tweets is also
important for kids who grew up with cell phones and texting, and can
type *really* fast on an iPhone.

On Apr 1, 4:41 pm, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky"  wrote:
> On Apr 1, 10:47 am, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
>
> > Mark,
>
> > It's extremely important where you have two bots that reply to each
> > others' tweets. With incorrectly sorted tweets, you get conversations
> > that look completely unnatural.
>
> Uh ... bots talking to each other on Twitter? Is this something I can
> watch today, or something that someone would build if the technology
> existed in the API to support it? ;-)


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[twitter-dev] Re: What Exactly is a "Developer Advocate?" (was Re: Opt-in beta of "Popular Tweets" for the Search API now available)

[Dewald Pretorius]

+1 ^ 10. Very well said, Ed. You're getting an enthusiastic standing
ovation and one-man Mexican wave from me.


On Apr 4, 9:39 pm, funkatron  wrote:
> Taylor,
>
> I'm about to vent. Sorry about this.
>
> At some point did you plan on addressing any of the numerous
> complaints raised against making this anything other than opt-in?
>
> Several of us raised this, and you offered no response for 10 days.
> See  browse_thread/thread/983086ae9935d50c/d4a8e0fbc0fee5c0?
> lnk=gst&q=popular+search#d4a8e0fbc0fee5c0>
>
> When you *did* post, you didn't actually address any concerns, or say
> "hey, I spoke with the API team. This is why it's going like this."
> Like, say, an advocate of 3rd party developers would do.
>
> I'm not doing Twitter any favors; I realize that. I'm just the
> developer of a tiny, old open source client whose been hacking away on
> the API since spring of 2007. I'm not a strategic partner, and I don't
> bring Twitter any value. No VC funding will be coming my way, I'm
> afraid, and it doesn't make headlines on TechCrunch when I add a new
> feature (ping.fm? I supported that in 2007).
>
> But what I would like is to be treated with some respect. If you post
> something, and get significant pushback, I'd expect at *very* least
> some explanation about why doing it the way you guys want to do it is
> a great idea. If you are an advocate for 3rd party developers, as I
> interpreted your title, then doing us the courtesy of not simply
> ignoring/avoiding the concerns we voice seems like part of your job.
>
> It seems like you're doing a lot of selling of changes to *us*. That's
> not an advocate -- that's an evangelist. If your role there is an
> evangelist, then fine. You're doing a good job of ignoring the tougher
> questions and sticking to company lines.
>
> The point here is that I used to cut the API crew a lot of slack
> because I thought they at least weren't feeding us a line. I felt they
> actually were aiming for transparency, but were just overworked.
>
> If this is the way things are gonna go with someone who is,
> presumably, tasked with being *our* advocate, I think Twitter is
> losing the thread. Maybe it doesn't matter for you guys financially,
> and you'll go on and do Very Important Things and lots of people will
> continue to view Twitter as Game-Changing Technology, but it sure is a
> bummer for me.
>
> --
> Ed Finklerhttp://funkatron.com
> @funkatron
> AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.com
>
> On Apr 1, 8:53 pm, Taylor Singletary 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Hi Folks,
>
> > As indicated a few weeks ago, we're launching our new *beta* enhancements to
> > search.twitter.com and the Search API today -- it's currently rolling out to
> > our servers. Thank you all for your feedback.
>
> > *Key API Takeaways*:
>
> >   - During the current phase, receiving "popular tweets" in your API search
> > results is *OPT-IN*. You will not see the new top results in search  unless
> > you specify the *result_typ**e* parameter on your search query string.
>
> >   - The result_type parameter takes one of three values:
> >     * *mixed* - receive both "popular tweets" and most recent tweets for the
> > query. This is the equivalent of the future default behavior.
> >     * *popular* - receive only "popular tweets" for the query.
> >     * *recent* - receive only recent results for the query. This is the
> > equivalent of the behavior you've come to expect until present
>
> >   - Each tweet in a search result will now contain a metadata node, with a
> > field called 'result_type' that indicates whether the tweet is "popular" or
> > "recent". In the future, there may be other result_types. The metadata node
> > will eventually contain other fields as well.
>
> >   - In addition to result_type, the metadata node may also include a
> > 'recent_retweets' field indicating the number of retweets the tweet has
> > received recently, rounded to a reasonable integer.
>
> >   - This metadata field will now appear in search results regardless of your
> > OPT-IN status on the popular tweets feature. You don't have to do anything
> > to receive this new metadata along with tweets in search results. In JSON,
> > the metadata field is simply "metadata." In XML, you'll see it expressed as
> > "".
>
> > *Continued Discussion*:
>
> > To date, Twitter's real-time search has proven to be incredibly valuable.
> > People, businesses and organizations have come to depend on finding out
> > what's being discussed about a particular topic *right now*.
>
> > We've been really impressed at the integrations many of you have developed
> > using the Search API. Whether it's offering search columns in a Twitter
> > client, mapping #hashtags to search, or deep analysis of trends and brand
> > monitoring, you've shown us what's possible with Twitter search.
>
> > With this new project, we want to make real-time search even more valuable
> > by surfacing the bes

[twitter-dev] Re: What Exactly is a "Developer Advocate?" (was Re: Opt-in beta of "Popular Tweets" for the Search API now available)

[Dewald Pretorius]

To be fair to Taylor, we may be expecting too much from his role.

When reading the job description of a Twitter Developer Advocate [1],
the only traditional advocate responsibility listed there is
"Represent developer needs when planning new API features and
changes."

Now, if Taylor conveyed our objections to the Platform team, then he
adequately executed that responsibility. I'm sure he did.

The rest of the responsibilities all speak in a Twitter to Developer
direction, i.e., more a Communicator than an Advocate.

In particular, in the About This Job section, it says, "it is
necessary to have an official voice regularly communicating with the
community," which underlines Communicator instead of Advocate.

[1] http://dld.bz/7Z

On Apr 4, 9:39 pm, funkatron  wrote:
> Taylor,
>
> I'm about to vent. Sorry about this.
>
> At some point did you plan on addressing any of the numerous
> complaints raised against making this anything other than opt-in?
>
> Several of us raised this, and you offered no response for 10 days.
> See  browse_thread/thread/983086ae9935d50c/d4a8e0fbc0fee5c0?
> lnk=gst&q=popular+search#d4a8e0fbc0fee5c0>
>
> When you *did* post, you didn't actually address any concerns, or say
> "hey, I spoke with the API team. This is why it's going like this."
> Like, say, an advocate of 3rd party developers would do.
>
> I'm not doing Twitter any favors; I realize that. I'm just the
> developer of a tiny, old open source client whose been hacking away on
> the API since spring of 2007. I'm not a strategic partner, and I don't
> bring Twitter any value. No VC funding will be coming my way, I'm
> afraid, and it doesn't make headlines on TechCrunch when I add a new
> feature (ping.fm? I supported that in 2007).
>
> But what I would like is to be treated with some respect. If you post
> something, and get significant pushback, I'd expect at *very* least
> some explanation about why doing it the way you guys want to do it is
> a great idea. If you are an advocate for 3rd party developers, as I
> interpreted your title, then doing us the courtesy of not simply
> ignoring/avoiding the concerns we voice seems like part of your job.
>
> It seems like you're doing a lot of selling of changes to *us*. That's
> not an advocate -- that's an evangelist. If your role there is an
> evangelist, then fine. You're doing a good job of ignoring the tougher
> questions and sticking to company lines.
>
> The point here is that I used to cut the API crew a lot of slack
> because I thought they at least weren't feeding us a line. I felt they
> actually were aiming for transparency, but were just overworked.
>
> If this is the way things are gonna go with someone who is,
> presumably, tasked with being *our* advocate, I think Twitter is
> losing the thread. Maybe it doesn't matter for you guys financially,
> and you'll go on and do Very Important Things and lots of people will
> continue to view Twitter as Game-Changing Technology, but it sure is a
> bummer for me.
>
> --
> Ed Finklerhttp://funkatron.com
> @funkatron
> AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.com
>
> On Apr 1, 8:53 pm, Taylor Singletary 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Hi Folks,
>
> > As indicated a few weeks ago, we're launching our new *beta* enhancements to
> > search.twitter.com and the Search API today -- it's currently rolling out to
> > our servers. Thank you all for your feedback.
>
> > *Key API Takeaways*:
>
> >   - During the current phase, receiving "popular tweets" in your API search
> > results is *OPT-IN*. You will not see the new top results in search  unless
> > you specify the *result_typ**e* parameter on your search query string.
>
> >   - The result_type parameter takes one of three values:
> >     * *mixed* - receive both "popular tweets" and most recent tweets for the
> > query. This is the equivalent of the future default behavior.
> >     * *popular* - receive only "popular tweets" for the query.
> >     * *recent* - receive only recent results for the query. This is the
> > equivalent of the behavior you've come to expect until present
>
> >   - Each tweet in a search result will now contain a metadata node, with a
> > field called 'result_type' that indicates whether the tweet is "popular" or
> > "recent". In the future, there may be other result_types. The metadata node
> > will eventually contain other fields as well.
>
> >   - In addition to result_type, the metadata node may also include a
> > 'recent_retweets' field indicating the number of retweets the tweet has
> > received recently, rounded to a reasonable integer.
>
> >   - This metadata field will now appear in search results regardless of your
> > OPT-IN status on the popular tweets feature. You don't have to do anything
> > to receive this new metadata along with tweets in search results. In JSON,
> > the metadata field is simply "metadata." In XML, you'll see it expressed as
> > "".
>
> > *Continued Discussion*:
>

[twitter-dev] Re: Musings About Twitter Search (was Re: What Exactly is a "Developer Advocate?" (was Re: Opt-in beta of "Popular Tweets" for the Search API now available))

[Dewald Pretorius]

Ed,

Yes, we should talk abour Search. But, I disagree when you say we
should not talk about the other stuff.

It is very frustrating when developers essentially stand up as one man
and tell Twitter, "bad idea, don't do it." And they go ahead and do it
anyway.

You know, it's not like we are their primary customers and consumers
of the API. It would be extremely alarming and troubling if they
ignored those guys.

On Apr 5, 9:08 pm, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky"  wrote:
> On 04/05/2010 09:47 AM, Dewald Pretorius wrote:
>
> > +1 ^ 10. Very well said, Ed. You're getting an enthusiastic standing
> > ovation and one-man Mexican wave from me.
>
> I think as a community, we're letting a golden opportunity for
> discussion about Twitter Search pass us by while we "vent" and "rant"
> about the inconveniences and about "roles" and "titles". I'm not by any
> means an expert on search in the large, although I do spend a fair
> amount of time trying to keep up with the natural language processing
> and computational linear algebra technologies that power search.
>
> But I think the discussion we *should* be having is not about the
> mechanics of the API, the logistics of API versioning, "developer best
> practices" or roles withing the community. I don't even think it should
> be about business models, although that's certain a part of it. I think
> the discussion we should be having is about Twitter Search itself - how
> it should work to meet the needs of the two classes of users I call
> "seekers" and "sellers". I posted a call for this discussion on my blog
> a while back, but haven't had many takers. So here it is again:
>
> http://borasky-research.net/2010/03/19/seeker-or-seller-what-do-you-t...
>
> If there's enough interest, maybe we can put together an "unconference"
> session on this at Chirp.
>
> --
> M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
> borasky-research.net/m-edward-ed-borasky
>
> "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." ~ Paul Erdős


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[twitter-dev] Re: What Exactly is a "Developer Advocate?" (was Re: Opt-in beta of "Popular Tweets" for the Search API now available)

[Dewald Pretorius]

Raffi,

Tweet id is a no-brainer. We understand that an linear incrementing
number does not scale because at some point it must cycle back to 1.

Search is a different animal.

When I do a Twitter search, I expect your system to tell me what is
*happening* right now. I am NOT expecting your system to tell me what
is *popular* right now.

This popular tweet thing is diluting and violating your entire mission
of "real-time".

If I search for "earthquake" I want to see what is *happening* in real-
time. I have no interest in seeing a 30-minute old tweet from @aplusk
or @ev just because they are trusted accounts and the tweet is being
retweeted a lot (to simplify the popularity algorithm).

If people have a need to see popular tweets, you know what? That is an
ideal service to be provided by a third-party developer/service.

Twitter is real-time, and has defined real-time information. Stick to
it. Don't dilute your mission.

On Apr 6, 1:03 am, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> we have the developer advocate we want, but, of course, please feel free to
> reach out to taylor with your concerns and what you would like him to do to
> help you all out.  i'm sure he would welcome the help.
>
> as for what's going on behind the scenes, i'll describe it out as so:
>
>    - tweet ID generation - this is a pure scalability problem that lays at
>    the heart of twitter being able to grow.  unless i'm mistaken, in the end, 
> a
>    centralized way of generating tweet IDs that are strictly increasing by one
>    does not scale.  the method that we generate tweet IDs, and therefore the
>    IDs themselves, will, almost probably, have to change.
>    - popular tweets in search - twitter is increasingly being relied upon to
>    be the place for relevant real-time information.  most end-users would say
>    that a time indexed search stream is not as valuable.  as you all can
>    probably tell, keeping a real time search index operational is hard enough,
>    but imagine keeping a service running that is simultaneously delivering
>    relevant results along with time indexed results.  that's significantly
>    harder.
>
> those are the issues facing us.  as i said, please bear with us -- once we
> have weighed all these issues internally, we will of course, let everybody
> know.  we've heard the concerns, but, if there are new ones, please let us
> know!
>
> On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 8:28 PM, Orian Marx (@orian) 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Raffi, one of the things that really stands out for me in what you are
> > saying here is that there are lots of "moving pieces" that the team is
> > trying to "align quickly". The question is, who and what is dictating
> > the schedule? I get the sense that all the recent changes are parts of
> > a bigger picture plan for Twitter, but the reality is that Twitter HQ
> > has not conveyed a real sense of this bigger picture to the developer
> > community - and it certainly hasn't conveyed why these recent changes
> > need to "align quickly". So inevitably the situation at hand seems to
> > be that some serious developer concerns effectively need to be pushed
> > aside in order to meet some internal goals of Twitter that have not
> > been made public. I can understand that as a choice that Twitter
> > management might make. What I think would be unreasonable would be for
> > Twitter to expect the developer community to not push back.
>
> > I think it's pretty clear that the "developer advocate" concept needs
> > to be fleshed out more, and i'll try to push for that at Chirp. If
> > anyone else is interested in helping make that discussion productive,
> > lets get started :-)
>
> > On Apr 5, 8:45 pm, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> > > to clarify (from my personal view), what taylor has provided to the team
> > is
> > > a clear view into what developers want / think / feel -- basically, a
> > pulse
> > > on the developer community.  he's doing a fine job.  and for these
> > > particular issues, not only has he conveyed the feelings of our
> > community,
> > > but everybody on the team has also heard it personally.  i hope we have
> > more
> > > to say about both these topics soon.  as you can all imagine, there is a
> > > myriad of moving pieces that we are all trying to get to align quickly --
> > > there are technical issues, there are the concerns of our developer and
> > user
> > > community, and then, of course, there are the overall objectives of
> > Twitter,
> > > Inc.  getting them all to align is, at times, ridiculously difficult.
>
> > > On Mon, Apr 

[twitter-dev] Re: What Exactly is a "Developer Advocate?" (was Re: Opt-in beta of "Popular Tweets" for the Search API now available)

[Dewald Pretorius]

Raffi,

"We obviously feel that users want the most relevant tweets first."
Has this been determined and confirmed with user focus groups, or is
this just an opinion that originated somewhere in a Twitter office or
meeting room?

I am one of those users, and I have just told you that I have no
interest in seeing old tweets, regardless of how "popular" or
"relevant" they deem to be by your algorithms. When I search Twitter
(and I'm making this statement as a user of search.twitter.com, not as
an API consumer) I want to see in real-time what is happening right
now. That is why I am using search.twitter.com and not google.com for
that purpose. If you're going to rather show "relevant" tweets, then I
will instead use Google because their matching algorithms are far more
advanced and mature.

On Apr 6, 9:47 am, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> hi dewald.
>
> we obviously feel that users want the most relevant tweets first (the  
> use of "popular" is unfortunate here). and the web interface of 
> search.twitter.com
>   has begun an evolution in that direction.
>
> it's still unclear what Twitter is going to do with the API (hence the  
> silence), however, to go with your argument: "time indexed" search is,  
> potentially, something a third party service could do.  we do provide  
> the streaming API to get much-better-than-search-real-time results.
>
> On Apr 6, 2010, at 4:28 AM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
>
>
>
> > Raffi,
>
> > Tweet id is a no-brainer. We understand that an linear incrementing
> > number does not scale because at some point it must cycle back to 1.
>
> > Search is a different animal.
>
> > When I do a Twitter search, I expect your system to tell me what is
> > *happening* right now. I am NOT expecting your system to tell me what
> > is *popular* right now.
>
> > This popular tweet thing is diluting and violating your entire mission
> > of "real-time".
>
> > If I search for "earthquake" I want to see what is *happening* in  
> > real-
> > time. I have no interest in seeing a 30-minute old tweet from @aplusk
> > or @ev just because they are trusted accounts and the tweet is being
> > retweeted a lot (to simplify the popularity algorithm).
>
> > If people have a need to see popular tweets, you know what? That is an
> > ideal service to be provided by a third-party developer/service.
>
> > Twitter is real-time, and has defined real-time information. Stick to
> > it. Don't dilute your mission.
>
> > On Apr 6, 1:03 am, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> >> we have the developer advocate we want, but, of course, please feel  
> >> free to
> >> reach out to taylor with your concerns and what you would like him  
> >> to do to
> >> help you all out.  i'm sure he would welcome the help.
>
> >> as for what's going on behind the scenes, i'll describe it out as so:
>
> >>    - tweet ID generation - this is a pure scalability problem that  
> >> lays at
> >>    the heart of twitter being able to grow.  unless i'm mistaken,  
> >> in the end, a
> >>    centralized way of generating tweet IDs that are strictly  
> >> increasing by one
> >>    does not scale.  the method that we generate tweet IDs, and  
> >> therefore the
> >>    IDs themselves, will, almost probably, have to change.
> >>    - popular tweets in search - twitter is increasingly being  
> >> relied upon to
> >>    be the place for relevant real-time information.  most end-users  
> >> would say
> >>    that a time indexed search stream is not as valuable.  as you  
> >> all can
> >>    probably tell, keeping a real time search index operational is  
> >> hard enough,
> >>    but imagine keeping a service running that is simultaneously  
> >> delivering
> >>    relevant results along with time indexed results.  that's  
> >> significantly
> >>    harder.
>
> >> those are the issues facing us.  as i said, please bear with us --  
> >> once we
> >> have weighed all these issues internally, we will of course, let  
> >> everybody
> >> know.  we've heard the concerns, but, if there are new ones, please  
> >> let us
> >> know!
>
> >> On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 8:28 PM, Orian Marx (@orian)  
> >> wrote:
>
> >>> Raffi, one of the things that really stands out for me in what you  
> >>> are
> >>> saying here is that there are lots of "moving pieces" that the  
> >>

[twitter-dev] Re: What Exactly is a "Developer Advocate?" (was Re: Opt-in beta of "Popular Tweets" for the Search API now available)

[Dewald Pretorius]

Dean,



Some developers have too much time on their hands.
So, Twitter make these changes to give them something to do so
that they can STFU on these forums, because they are too busy chasing
the latest API mod.



On Apr 6, 10:14 am, "Dean Collins"  wrote:
> But raffi why do you have to break the old to offer the new?
>
> Basically I've just updated MyPostButler to work again after your last
> unannounced changed the Thursday evening before a holiday break only to
> open my email this morning and see you are going to modify search api
> yet again in some undetermined period of time.
>
> I understand things need to change from time to time BUT why so often?
> Why cant you make the new changes opt-in rather than breaking all the
> previous applications already deployed out there.
>
> Regards,
>
> Dean Collins
> Cognation Inc
> d...@cognation.net
> +1-212-203-4357   New York
> +61-2-9016-5642   (Sydney in-dial).
> +44-20-3129-6001 (London in-dial).

[twitter-dev] Re: What Exactly is a "Developer Advocate?" (was Re: Opt-in beta of "Popular Tweets" for the Search API now available)

[Dewald Pretorius]

Marcel,

How do I do that as an end user of search.twitter.com?

I know it's confusing, because I switched from talking about this
issue as a developer to talking about this issue as an end user. I
thought I made that clear when I said, "and I'm making this statement
as a user of search.twitter.com, not as an API consumer."

I have no interest in seeing old tweets when I do a search at
http://search.twitter.com. I expect those search results to show me
what is being said right now (i.e., real-time) about my search phrase.

Yes, I know one can switch views with the API, but I wasn't talking
about the API.

On Apr 6, 12:44 pm, Marcel Molina  wrote:
> If you have no interest in seeing "old tweets" then pass the parameter that
> indicates that you want to strictly see the most recent tweets (the legacy
> behavior). You get what you want and those who are interested in more signal
> amongst the ever increasing noise can find out the
> moderately-less-recent-but-most-popular results associated with their search
> term. You represent one desired use case. There are others. We are providing
> a mechanism to get one,  the other or both. Choose whichever you like.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 6:11 AM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > Raffi,
>
> > "We obviously feel that users want the most relevant tweets first."
> > Has this been determined and confirmed with user focus groups, or is
> > this just an opinion that originated somewhere in a Twitter office or
> > meeting room?
>
> > I am one of those users, and I have just told you that I have no
> > interest in seeing old tweets, regardless of how "popular" or
> > "relevant" they deem to be by your algorithms. When I search Twitter
> > (and I'm making this statement as a user of search.twitter.com, not as
> > an API consumer) I want to see in real-time what is happening right
> > now. That is why I am using search.twitter.com and not google.com for
> > that purpose. If you're going to rather show "relevant" tweets, then I
> > will instead use Google because their matching algorithms are far more
> > advanced and mature.
>
> > On Apr 6, 9:47 am, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> > > hi dewald.
>
> > > we obviously feel that users want the most relevant tweets first (the
> > > use of "popular" is unfortunate here). and the web interface of
> > search.twitter.com
> > >   has begun an evolution in that direction.
>
> > > it's still unclear what Twitter is going to do with the API (hence the
> > > silence), however, to go with your argument: "time indexed" search is,
> > > potentially, something a third party service could do.  we do provide
> > > the streaming API to get much-better-than-search-real-time results.
>
> > > On Apr 6, 2010, at 4:28 AM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
>
> > > > Raffi,
>
> > > > Tweet id is a no-brainer. We understand that an linear incrementing
> > > > number does not scale because at some point it must cycle back to 1.
>
> > > > Search is a different animal.
>
> > > > When I do a Twitter search, I expect your system to tell me what is
> > > > *happening* right now. I am NOT expecting your system to tell me what
> > > > is *popular* right now.
>
> > > > This popular tweet thing is diluting and violating your entire mission
> > > > of "real-time".
>
> > > > If I search for "earthquake" I want to see what is *happening* in
> > > > real-
> > > > time. I have no interest in seeing a 30-minute old tweet from @aplusk
> > > > or @ev just because they are trusted accounts and the tweet is being
> > > > retweeted a lot (to simplify the popularity algorithm).
>
> > > > If people have a need to see popular tweets, you know what? That is an
> > > > ideal service to be provided by a third-party developer/service.
>
> > > > Twitter is real-time, and has defined real-time information. Stick to
> > > > it. Don't dilute your mission.
>
> > > > On Apr 6, 1:03 am, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> > > >> we have the developer advocate we want, but, of course, please feel
> > > >> free to
> > > >> reach out to taylor with your concerns and what you would like him
> > > >> to do to
> > > >> help you all out.  i'm sure he would welcome the help.
>
> > > >> as for what's going on behind the scenes, i'll describe it out as so:
>
> > > >>    - tweet ID genera

[twitter-dev] Re: What Exactly is a "Developer Advocate?" (was Re: Opt-in beta of "Popular Tweets" for the Search API now available)

[Dewald Pretorius]

Oh, and one more thing.

In real-time, anything minutes ago or older is an "old tweet" if there
are newer tweets available.

On Apr 6, 12:44 pm, Marcel Molina  wrote:
> If you have no interest in seeing "old tweets" then pass the parameter that
> indicates that you want to strictly see the most recent tweets (the legacy
> behavior). You get what you want and those who are interested in more signal
> amongst the ever increasing noise can find out the
> moderately-less-recent-but-most-popular results associated with their search
> term. You represent one desired use case. There are others. We are providing
> a mechanism to get one,  the other or both. Choose whichever you like.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 6:11 AM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > Raffi,
>
> > "We obviously feel that users want the most relevant tweets first."
> > Has this been determined and confirmed with user focus groups, or is
> > this just an opinion that originated somewhere in a Twitter office or
> > meeting room?
>
> > I am one of those users, and I have just told you that I have no
> > interest in seeing old tweets, regardless of how "popular" or
> > "relevant" they deem to be by your algorithms. When I search Twitter
> > (and I'm making this statement as a user of search.twitter.com, not as
> > an API consumer) I want to see in real-time what is happening right
> > now. That is why I am using search.twitter.com and not google.com for
> > that purpose. If you're going to rather show "relevant" tweets, then I
> > will instead use Google because their matching algorithms are far more
> > advanced and mature.
>
> > On Apr 6, 9:47 am, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> > > hi dewald.
>
> > > we obviously feel that users want the most relevant tweets first (the
> > > use of "popular" is unfortunate here). and the web interface of
> > search.twitter.com
> > >   has begun an evolution in that direction.
>
> > > it's still unclear what Twitter is going to do with the API (hence the
> > > silence), however, to go with your argument: "time indexed" search is,
> > > potentially, something a third party service could do.  we do provide
> > > the streaming API to get much-better-than-search-real-time results.
>
> > > On Apr 6, 2010, at 4:28 AM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
>
> > > > Raffi,
>
> > > > Tweet id is a no-brainer. We understand that an linear incrementing
> > > > number does not scale because at some point it must cycle back to 1.
>
> > > > Search is a different animal.
>
> > > > When I do a Twitter search, I expect your system to tell me what is
> > > > *happening* right now. I am NOT expecting your system to tell me what
> > > > is *popular* right now.
>
> > > > This popular tweet thing is diluting and violating your entire mission
> > > > of "real-time".
>
> > > > If I search for "earthquake" I want to see what is *happening* in
> > > > real-
> > > > time. I have no interest in seeing a 30-minute old tweet from @aplusk
> > > > or @ev just because they are trusted accounts and the tweet is being
> > > > retweeted a lot (to simplify the popularity algorithm).
>
> > > > If people have a need to see popular tweets, you know what? That is an
> > > > ideal service to be provided by a third-party developer/service.
>
> > > > Twitter is real-time, and has defined real-time information. Stick to
> > > > it. Don't dilute your mission.
>
> > > > On Apr 6, 1:03 am, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> > > >> we have the developer advocate we want, but, of course, please feel
> > > >> free to
> > > >> reach out to taylor with your concerns and what you would like him
> > > >> to do to
> > > >> help you all out.  i'm sure he would welcome the help.
>
> > > >> as for what's going on behind the scenes, i'll describe it out as so:
>
> > > >>    - tweet ID generation - this is a pure scalability problem that
> > > >> lays at
> > > >>    the heart of twitter being able to grow.  unless i'm mistaken,
> > > >> in the end, a
> > > >>    centralized way of generating tweet IDs that are strictly
> > > >> increasing by one
> > > >>    does not scale.  the method that we generate tweet IDs, and
> > > >> therefore the
> > > >>    IDs themselves

[twitter-dev] Re: What Exactly is a "Developer Advocate?" (was Re: Opt-in beta of "Popular Tweets" for the Search API now available)

[Dewald Pretorius]

Let's not kid ourselves. This change to "relevant" tweets is ad
revenue related, driven by a fear that Google will siphon off too many
search queries.

2 cents. *clink-a-ling*


-- 
To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.

[twitter-dev] Re: What Exactly is a "Developer Advocate?" (was Re: Opt-in beta of "Popular Tweets" for the Search API now available)

[Dewald Pretorius]

"The "most recent" tweets are still available Dewald."

The impression I formed was that the entire search experience was
going to be converted over to "relevant" tweets at some point in time.
I.e., all returned tweets will be picked for relevance and time-sorted
tweets will not be shown.

Anyway, never mind. I've suddenly found something to do (taking down
the Christmas decorations), so I will now STFU.

On Apr 6, 3:22 pm, Marcel Molina  wrote:
> While we should never kid ourselves, we should also try not to be
> sensationalist about things. Conspiracy theories aside, as Twitter gets more
> and more users, search results sorted strictly by time can in a lot of cases
> provide massive velocity that is very noisy and not very relevant. Sometimes
> the answer to "What's happening right now?"
>
> Here's an example:http://skitch.com/marcelmolina/n7thi/picture-5
>
> The "most recent" tweets are still available Dewald. We aren't hiding them
> from you. They are right there. If you are more interested in
> @Evilknievel213 or @iHollywoodDance then you might be a little miffed that
> you have to scan past two results that are more "newsworthy" and a I would
> posit in most cases a more compelling answer to the question "What's
> happening right now?".
>
> If your issue here is with search.twitter.com as an end user and not the API
> then perhaps this forum has ceased to be the optimal place to share your
> feedback. We're not trying to ruin your search experience. We're trying to
> improve it by helping you wade through the noise. If you prefer to not have
> help wading through the noise you are the 20% case.
>
> We're not monetizing earthquakes...
>
> On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 10:22 AM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > Let's not kid ourselves. This change to "relevant" tweets is ad
> > revenue related, driven by a fear that Google will siphon off too many
> > search queries.
>
> > 2 cents. *clink-a-ling*
>
> > --
> > To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.
>
> --
> Marcel Molina
> Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/noradio

[twitter-dev] Re: What Exactly is a "Developer Advocate?" (was Re: Opt-in beta of "Popular Tweets" for the Search API now available)

[Dewald Pretorius]

Very well said, Andrew.

Taylor, a Developer Evangelist is supposed to be someone who is paid
by Twitter to represent the developers, speak on their behalf in
meetings and conversations, represent their interests even when those
interests are directly opposed to Twitter's, fight on behalf of the
developers, and proactively take actions that will further and protect
developer interests.

A Developer Advocate is in a way synonymous with a union shop steward.

I don't know if this is what you did at LinkedIn as their Developer
Advocate. If not, then they (not you) too missed the mark by assigning
to you the wrong task list.

 If this is not what Twitter wants to pay you to do, then fine. Then
they must just not pretend to have a Developer Advocate by slapping
that title on somebody.

Titles matter, but they mean nothing if you're not doing what the
title implies.

With so many thousands of developers out there, as a true Developer
Advocate, you shouldn't have time to do coding, documentation, and
whatever else they have you doing.

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with Andrew's full employment history
and business background. But, I've been in the IT industry since 1980,
and I've been at Vice President level of a large IT consulting
company. Hence, with some things there is a slight possibility that I
may know a little about what I'm talking.

On Apr 6, 8:14 pm, Andrew Badera  wrote:
> Taylor,
>
> Your job title very much does matter. Any respectable public/"open"
> API publisher needs to be concerned with the needs, wants and feelings
> of their developer community. If you are part of Twitter's effort to
> address this concern, then you need to be doing certain things. If you
> are not, then you probably should not be labelled as doing these
> things in order not to produce misleading expectations among
> aforementioned developer community.
>
> From the sounds of things, you're somewhere between evangelist and
> client services, but nowhere close to being in the ballpark of
> developer advocate. I'm not saying you're not doing a good job, I'm
> just saying you're not doing THAT job.
>
> Unfortunately this just contributes to the idea that Twitter doesn't
> care about the people who enabled its success, that it's grown too
> big, too fast, to remember the little people, that it's all about the
> big money and not at all about the community. I'm sure that's driven
> in large part by Evil Investors, but somewhere at Twitter, someone
> needs to take a stand and strike a balance. Apparently that's not you.
>
> ∞ Andy Badera
> ∞ +1 518-641-1280 Google Voice
> ∞ This email is: [ ] bloggable [x] ask first [ ] private
> ∞ Google me:http://www.google.com/search?q=andrew%20badera
>
> On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 7:07 PM, Taylor Singletary
>
>
>
>  wrote:
> > Hey everyone,
> > My job title doesn't matter much. I do what I can and what needs to be done,
> > whether that's being a contributing programmer on upcoming platform
> > features, thoroughly testing an API before launch, analyzing implementations
> > for spec compliance, communicating to and with the developer community,
> > working closely with partners, writing documentation, or otherwise. My focus
> > is on making the developer experience a positive one regardless of what
> > bucket you fit into (hobbyist, corporate contributor, research scientist, or
> > entrepreneur, or another lovely bucket). I might do that through building
> > internal tools that make it more efficient and scalable for us to support
> > you, I might do that by helping people out here who have questions, and I
> > certainly might do that by channeling feedback generated in this particular
> > segment of the developer community back to internal teams.
> > When answering questions or engaging in discussions on this forum, I try to
> > answer specific questions that are representative of the whole. I might not
> > answer your specific question, but it's likely I'll answer a similar
> > question with a response that would also apply to your own. Sometimes I will
> > be intentionally obtuse. Often I will be overly verbose. If I don't perceive
> > that I have something meaningful or valuable to add to a conversation or
> > argument, I won't likely respond.
> > We're listening. You're always a factor in the decision making process.
> > Sometimes the community can help change a decision mid-flight (like us
> > deciding to find another way to keep public_timeline alive, despite our
> > desire to deprecate). There will be other times that we'll make a decision
> > that's not in alignment with the perceived popular opinion. All of these
> > things are true. I'll do my best to be transparent on our thought process
> > when it's appropriate to do so; there are times when we won't make our
> > intentions perfectly clear.
> > The Twitter API will change. You & I will change with it. This is abstract.
> > This is concrete. This is not a surprise. This is not a pipe.
> > I'm still learning.
> > Taylor Singletary
> 

[twitter-dev] Re: What Exactly is a "Developer Advocate?" (was Re: Opt-in beta of "Popular Tweets" for the Search API now available)

[Dewald Pretorius]

Yikes, of course I meant to write Deveoper Advocate, and not Developer
Evangelist.

On Apr 6, 8:51 pm, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> Very well said, Andrew.
>
> Taylor, a Developer Evangelist is supposed to be someone who is paid
> by Twitter to represent the developers, speak on their behalf in
> meetings and conversations, represent their interests even when those
> interests are directly opposed to Twitter's, fight on behalf of the
> developers, and proactively take actions that will further and protect
> developer interests.
>
> A Developer Advocate is in a way synonymous with a union shop steward.
>
> I don't know if this is what you did at LinkedIn as their Developer
> Advocate. If not, then they (not you) too missed the mark by assigning
> to you the wrong task list.
>
>  If this is not what Twitter wants to pay you to do, then fine. Then
> they must just not pretend to have a Developer Advocate by slapping
> that title on somebody.
>
> Titles matter, but they mean nothing if you're not doing what the
> title implies.
>
> With so many thousands of developers out there, as a true Developer
> Advocate, you shouldn't have time to do coding, documentation, and
> whatever else they have you doing.
>
> Unfortunately I'm not familiar with Andrew's full employment history
> and business background. But, I've been in the IT industry since 1980,
> and I've been at Vice President level of a large IT consulting
> company. Hence, with some things there is a slight possibility that I
> may know a little about what I'm talking.
>
> On Apr 6, 8:14 pm, Andrew Badera  wrote:
>
>
>
> > Taylor,
>
> > Your job title very much does matter. Any respectable public/"open"
> > API publisher needs to be concerned with the needs, wants and feelings
> > of their developer community. If you are part of Twitter's effort to
> > address this concern, then you need to be doing certain things. If you
> > are not, then you probably should not be labelled as doing these
> > things in order not to produce misleading expectations among
> > aforementioned developer community.
>
> > From the sounds of things, you're somewhere between evangelist and
> > client services, but nowhere close to being in the ballpark of
> > developer advocate. I'm not saying you're not doing a good job, I'm
> > just saying you're not doing THAT job.
>
> > Unfortunately this just contributes to the idea that Twitter doesn't
> > care about the people who enabled its success, that it's grown too
> > big, too fast, to remember the little people, that it's all about the
> > big money and not at all about the community. I'm sure that's driven
> > in large part by Evil Investors, but somewhere at Twitter, someone
> > needs to take a stand and strike a balance. Apparently that's not you.
>
> > ∞ Andy Badera
> > ∞ +1 518-641-1280 Google Voice
> > ∞ This email is: [ ] bloggable [x] ask first [ ] private
> > ∞ Google me:http://www.google.com/search?q=andrew%20badera
>
> > On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 7:07 PM, Taylor Singletary
>
> >  wrote:
> > > Hey everyone,
> > > My job title doesn't matter much. I do what I can and what needs to be 
> > > done,
> > > whether that's being a contributing programmer on upcoming platform
> > > features, thoroughly testing an API before launch, analyzing 
> > > implementations
> > > for spec compliance, communicating to and with the developer community,
> > > working closely with partners, writing documentation, or otherwise. My 
> > > focus
> > > is on making the developer experience a positive one regardless of what
> > > bucket you fit into (hobbyist, corporate contributor, research scientist, 
> > > or
> > > entrepreneur, or another lovely bucket). I might do that through building
> > > internal tools that make it more efficient and scalable for us to support
> > > you, I might do that by helping people out here who have questions, and I
> > > certainly might do that by channeling feedback generated in this 
> > > particular
> > > segment of the developer community back to internal teams.
> > > When answering questions or engaging in discussions on this forum, I try 
> > > to
> > > answer specific questions that are representative of the whole. I might 
> > > not
> > > answer your specific question, but it's likely I'll answer a similar
> > > question with a response that would also apply to your own. Sometimes I 
> > > will

[twitter-dev] Re: Opt-in beta of "Popular Tweets" for the Search API now available

[Dewald Pretorius]

Jaanus,

Nobody intended to be mean, and nobody put into question whether
everyone at Twitter is doing a good job.

As Andrew noted, it's just that the job of Developer Advocate is not
being done at all. I see no malice in that. I believe it is just a
misunderstanding or a lack of understanding of the role.

To boil it down to the simplest of levels, an advocate is a person who
pleads for a cause or propounds an idea.

Hence, a developer advocate speaks, pleads, or argues in favor of
developers, particularly when their needs, wishes, desires, or
interests diverge from the needs, wishes, desires, or interests of
Twitter.

On Apr 7, 12:22 am, Jaanus  wrote:
> My oh my, what discussion about advocacy and what not. I think Taylor,
> Raffi and everybody else from Twitter are doing a great job here and
> everyone is eager to learn and they know they have ways to go. Let's
> not get mean.
>
> I'm with those who say injecting popular searches into the search API
> results by Twitter still doesn't entirely make sense, given the way
> the rollout/communication is handled. Here is the problem/conversation
> in a nutshell:
>
> Twitter: "We are going to inject popular search results into the
> search API results, changing previous behavior that just returned
> recent results."
> Developers: "Wait a sec, this is a bad idea because of A, B and C.
> Maybe you can version the API better or some such."
> ... time passes, nothing happens ...
> Twitter: "Hi, we're starting to roll this out now."
>
> I don't particularly care for the popular results either way and I
> trust Twitter that it is good for users in the grand scheme of things,
> but the API behavior change is disturbing. It would be great to work
> against a fixed API target so that those who want search to work in a
> particular way can just work against a given API version, but with
> search, this is not an option, you only have one endpoint that's in
> this kind of flux.
>
> What I'm saying is Twitter as a company could just earn more developer
> street cred and respect here by handling this in a more graceful way.
> There comes a point in time where the "moving parts" argument as an
> excuse to not follow good API practices gets somewhat old.
>
> rgds,
> Jaanus


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[twitter-dev] Re: Fred Wilson article on Twitter API

[Dewald Pretorius]

With Fred being a Twitter board member, and with the enthusiasm for
the article that was displayed by Twitter employees:

1) Do we all need to stop right now with developing any further "gap
filler" type of functionality or apps?

2) Is there only a future in the ecosystem for the very minute handful
of developers who happen to chance upon the idea of a "killer app"?

3) Can we now expect Twitter to drive most of us out of business or
existence by building into Twitter the functionality that we built
into our apps?


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[twitter-dev] Re: Fred Wilson article on Twitter API

[Dewald Pretorius]

Raffi,

It will be wise of Twitter to release an official statement regarding
continued developer support. Perhaps in the form of an Evan blog post.

When you read the commentary on tech blogs following Fred's post, it
should be clear that it is not only developers who see the threat of
Twitter now screwing them by taking ideas they came up with and
implemented, and building those ideas into the Twitter core.

On Apr 9, 12:33 pm, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> 100%
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 7:11 AM, Nigel Legg  wrote:
> > There will always be room for developers on the fringes, and novel ways of
> > using twitter. I would hope that twitter will concentrate on the maintenance
> > and development of the core system, and allow us to add the bells and
> > whistles as required by our own set of users.
>
> > On 9 April 2010 13:56, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
>
> >> With Fred being a Twitter board member, and with the enthusiasm for
> >> the article that was displayed by Twitter employees:
>
> >> 1) Do we all need to stop right now with developing any further "gap
> >> filler" type of functionality or apps?
>
> >> 2) Is there only a future in the ecosystem for the very minute handful
> >> of developers who happen to chance upon the idea of a "killer app"?
>
> >> 3) Can we now expect Twitter to drive most of us out of business or
> >> existence by building into Twitter the functionality that we built
> >> into our apps?
>
> >> --
> >> To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.
>
> --
> Raffi Krikorian
> Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/raffi- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie

[Dewald Pretorius]

It's great for Loren.

But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it.

Twitter has just kicked all the other developers of Twitter iPhone
(and iPad) clients in the teeth. Big time. Now suddenly their products
compete with a free product that carries the Twitter brand name, and
that has potentially millions of dollars at its disposal for further
development.

It's really like they're saying, "We picked the winner. Thanks for
everything you've done in the past, but now, screw you."

This would not have been such a huge deal if the developer ecosystem
did not play such a huge role in propelling Twitter to where it is
today.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, Tim Haines  wrote:
> Before anyone rants, let me say congratulations Loren, and congratulations
> Twitter.  Awesome!  Totally awesome!
>
> :-)
>
> Tim.


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[twitter-dev] Re: Fred Wilson article on Twitter API

[Dewald Pretorius]

Twitter has now displayed a distinctive predatorial stance towards the
developer ecosystem.

The ecosystem is encouraged to innovate, to expend time, effort, and
money to come up with new ideas and build services. When that
particular space proves to be successful and potentially rewarding,
the predator pounces and screws everyone but the one picked as the
winner.

In the long term, the acquisition of Tweetie was a penny-wise pound-
foolish move, and here's why:

1) From now on, everyone will know, or at least wonder, whether
encouragement and support for the ecosystem is genuine, or simply a
facade to cultivate the next space that Twitter can plunder.

2) Innovation is stifled, because to many it now is not worth their
effort, time, and money to develop services that stand a very good
chance of receiving a similar kick in the teeth.

3) In one single day, in one fell swoop, many developers have been
turned away from Twitter. Few people have the level of imagination
required to build new mouse traps, and fewer have the resources to
build sophisticated new mouse traps. You will never hear from these
developers who have been turned away. You will never know who they are
and how many there were. They've just disappeared in the mist.

You don't do this. You don't ride to success on the coattails and
efforts of others and then turn around and plunder them. It is wrong.

Twitter is not the first to do this, but it still does not make it
right.


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[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie

[Dewald Pretorius]

Twitter has now displayed a distinctive predatorial stance towards the
developer ecosystem.

The ecosystem is encouraged to innovate, to expend time, effort, and
money to come up with new ideas and build services. When that
particular space proves to be successful and potentially rewarding,
the predator pounces and screws everyone but the one picked as the
winner.

In the long term, the acquisition of Tweetie was a penny-wise pound-
foolish move, and here's why:

1) From now on, everyone will know, or at least wonder, whether
encouragement and support for the ecosystem is genuine, or simply a
facade to cultivate the next space that Twitter can plunder.

2) Innovation is stifled, because to many it now is not worth their
effort, time, and money to develop services that stand a very good
chance of receiving a similar kick in the teeth.

3) In one single day, in one fell swoop, many developers have been
turned away from Twitter. Few people have the level of imagination
required to build new mouse traps, and fewer have the resources to
build sophisticated new mouse traps. You will never hear from these
developers who have been turned away. You will never know who they are
and how many there were. They've just disappeared in the mist.

You don't do this. You don't ride to success on the coattails and
efforts of others and then turn around and plunder them. It is wrong.

Twitter is not the first to do this, but it still does not make it
right.

PS. Sorry for the duplicate. I initially posted this to the incorrect
thread.


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[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie

[Dewald Pretorius]

Here's an interesting related thread on Twitter:
http://dld.bz/PGz

As well as this NY Times article:
http://dld.bz/PG5

where Evan Williams says, "Twitter will continue to buy or develop
apps and features it needs, even if third-party developers already
provide them."

[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie

[Dewald Pretorius]

Jesse,

There is a lot of merit in your point of view with regards to one's
core.

But, what that also means is the death of the ecosystem as we know it.
The ecosystem as we know it used to develop "for" Twitter, enhancing
the Twitter offering.

What you're proposing is a radical change, where one does not develop
"for" Twitter to enhance their service, but where one simply exploits
their service to enhance your own core (it's a very good strategy, by
the way).

Coming back to the acquisition, if this strategy of Twitter runs its
course, innovation of Twitter is going to be greatly stifled. Most
developers will stop developing new things that enhance the Twitter
service.

Apart from the initial 140-character service, Twitter has not yet
innovated anything. Everything they have, subsequent to the initial
base service, has been things others have innovated for them, or ideas
they got from somewhere else. And now they've stifled or at least
discouraged those innovators. Oh, look, is that a hole in Twitter's
foot?

On Apr 10, 12:44 pm, Jesse Stay  wrote:
> In support of what Raffi is saying, I think too many apps are "supports" for
> Twitter (some call it "filling holes").  I think the more beneficial, and
> long-term advantageous approach is instead to make Twitter a "support" for
> your application.  I hope this isn't seen as spam, but I wrote about this
> last night in where I suggest we re-evaluate what our "cores" are based 
> on:http://staynalive.com/articles/2010/04/10/what-is-your-core/
>
> The Twitter app ecosystem is far from dead, is still thriving - we just need
> to re-evaluate where our cores are based.  I think Twitter has drawn the
> line in the sand on what their core is. It's time we adjust ours so we're
> using Twitter as a complement, rather than the other way around.  Just my
> $.02 - see you at Chirp!
>
> Jesse
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 10:20 PM, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> > the way that i usually explain twitter.com (the web site) is that it
> > embodies one particular experience of "twitter".  twitter.com needs to
> > implement almost every feature that twitter builds, and needs to implement
> > it in a way that is easy to use for the* lowest common denominator of user
> > *.  this now also holds for the iphone.  so, one possible answer for how
> > to innovate and do potentially interesting/lucrative/creative things is to
> > simply not target the lowest common denominator user anymore.  find a
> > particular need, and not the generic need, and blow it out of the water.
>
> > what i am most interested in seeing is apps that break out of the mold and
> > do things differently.  ever since i joined the twitter platform, our team
> > has built APIs that directly mirror the twitter.com experience -- 3rd
> > party developers have taken those, and mimicked the twitter.comexperience.  
> > for example, countless apps simply fetch timelines from the API
> > and just render them.  can we start to do more creative things?
>
> > i don't have any great potentials off the top of my head (its midnight
> > where i am now, and i flew in on a red-eye last night), but here are a few
> > potential ones.  i'm sure more creative application developers can come up
> > with more.  i want to see applications for people that:
>
> >    - don't have time to sit and watch twitter 24/7/365.  while i love to
> >    scan through my timeline, frankly, that's a lot of content.  can you
> >    summarize it for me?  can you do something better than chronological 
> > sort?
> >    - want to understand what's going on around them.  how do i discover
> >    people talking about the place i currently am?  how do i know this
> >    restaurant is good?  this involves user discovery, place discovery, 
> > content
> >    analysis, etc.
> >    - want to see what people are talking about a particular tv show, news
> >    article, or any piece of live-real-world content in real time.  how can
> >    twitter be a "second/third/fourth screen" to the world?
>
> >  perhaps the OS X music playback app market is a poor example?  sure
> > itunes is a dominant app, but last.fm, spotify, etc., all exist and are
> > doing things that itunes can't do.
>
> > On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 7:26 PM, funkatron  wrote:
>
> >> Twitter did this to BB clients too, today.
>
> >> You think this is the last platform they'll do an Official Client on?
>
> >> Take a look at the OS X music playback app market to see the future of
> >> Twitter clients.
>
> >> Here's the shirt f

[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie

[Dewald Pretorius]

Chad,

That's what I meant by predatorial.

All the past rethoric around how appreciative Twitter was of the
developer ecosystem, and how they valued the developer ecosystem, has
taken on a brand-new tone and color today.

On Apr 10, 1:02 pm, Chad Etzel  wrote:
> On Apr 10, 2010, at 5:23, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
>
> > Twitter has now displayed a distinctive predatorial stance towards the
> > developer ecosystem.
>
> Whoa now.
>
> If by "predatorial" you mean "makes strategic acquisitions in line  
> with their business goals" then sure. See also: Google, Facebook,  
> Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, and countless others who are equally  
> "preditorial." Their ecosystems just happen to be broader at this point.
>
> Welcome to Capitalism and Corporate America.
>
> All that has happened is the bar for competition/innovation has been  
> significantly raised. Sure it will weed-out lesser developers, but it  
> will be a net positive for the end users (according to theory).
>
> -Chad
>
>
>
>
>
> > The ecosystem is encouraged to innovate, to expend time, effort, and
> > money to come up with new ideas and build services. When that
> > particular space proves to be successful and potentially rewarding,
> > the predator pounces and screws everyone but the one picked as the
> > winner.
>
> > In the long term, the acquisition of Tweetie was a penny-wise pound-
> > foolish move, and here's why:
>
> > 1) From now on, everyone will know, or at least wonder, whether
> > encouragement and support for the ecosystem is genuine, or simply a
> > facade to cultivate the next space that Twitter can plunder.
>
> > 2) Innovation is stifled, because to many it now is not worth their
> > effort, time, and money to develop services that stand a very good
> > chance of receiving a similar kick in the teeth.
>
> > 3) In one single day, in one fell swoop, many developers have been
> > turned away from Twitter. Few people have the level of imagination
> > required to build new mouse traps, and fewer have the resources to
> > build sophisticated new mouse traps. You will never hear from these
> > developers who have been turned away. You will never know who they are
> > and how many there were. They've just disappeared in the mist.
>
> > You don't do this. You don't ride to success on the coattails and
> > efforts of others and then turn around and plunder them. It is wrong.
>
> > Twitter is not the first to do this, but it still does not make it
> > right.
>
> > PS. Sorry for the duplicate. I initially posted this to the incorrect
> > thread.
>
> > --
> > To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie

[Dewald Pretorius]

Nigel,

Other Twitter iPhone clients are now kaput. You cannot compete with
the official Twitter iPhone client, which is given away free of
charge. There are quite a few "valued" developers who are having a
very ruined day.

Clients like TweetDeck and Seesmic should still be okay, because they
are more general social media clients.

One would be very disrespectful of the value of one's own time, if one
now starts developing something that's exclusively a Twitter service.

Please read what Jesse wrote. It is an extremely smart strategy. One
such definition of "your core" might be "multi social services XYZ,"
which would describe the "core" of TweetDeck and Seesmic.

On Apr 10, 1:49 pm, Nigel Legg  wrote:
> Surely all twitter developers are getting their success on the coattails of
> Twitter, rather than twitter getting success on the coattails of the
> developers?
> If you as a user, as a supplier to users, cannot find something that tweetie
> doesn't do then maybe you haven't got your ear to the ground of what twitter
> users want to see.  My aim is to carry on with what I'm doing, and
> [hopefully] do it well before twitter can do it; if twitter then want to
> come knocking, that's up to them; if they want to replicate my service,
> that's up to them; hopefully I'll have enough users to survive.
> To me, this just ups the ante, and makes the environment just a little bit
> more edgy and competitive.  Which is great, if you don't see the people
> you're competing with.  Not sure how I'd feel if I was going to #chirp.
>
> On 10 April 2010 17:21, Zhami  wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Apr 10, 11:44 am, Jesse Stay  wrote:
> > 
> > > I think the more beneficial, and long-term advantageous approach
> > > is instead to make Twitter a "support" for your application.
>
> > Spot On!!
>
> > --
> > To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie

[Dewald Pretorius]

The answer, Abraham, is nothing stops them.

Reread what Evan Williams said here:
http://dld.bz/PG5

"Twitter will continue to buy or develop apps and features it needs,
even if third-party developers already provide them."

It clearly means Twitter intends to directly compete with its
developer ecosystem.

It's not coincidental and it is not accidental. It's a conscious and
deliberate management decision.

On Apr 10, 3:51 pm, Abraham Williams <4bra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This also adds the question of if we developers start digging new holes what
> is to stop Twitter from filling them in themselves?
>
> Abraham
>
> On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 11:45, Arnaud Meunier 
>
>
>
>
> > wrote:
> > We shouldn’t “fill holes” anymore, Wilson said. The thing is Twitter
> > has deliberately kept a lot of holes opened, encouraging us to fill
> > them (and lots of applications have been doing it with innovation, by
> > the way).
>
> > Now we’re supposed to dig, create new holes, and fill them. Okay!
> > There are a lot of ideas to have around Twitter, lots of new holes to
> > dig.
>
> > But the question is still the same: "What will be left up to the
> > ecosystem and what will be created on the platform?"
>
> > I think I'm not the only one here to fear that Twitter itself begins
> > to compete with the applications I created (or I plan to create). Yes,
> > it's fun to dig holes and to fill them. But it also takes time and
> > money, and it's like the game was going to be much more risky than it
> > used to be.
>
> > Arnaud -http://twitter.com/twitoaster
> > Twitoaster -http://twitoaster.com
>
> > On 10 avr, 20:36, Jesse Stay  wrote:
> > > On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 10:02 AM, Dewald Pretorius 
> > wrote:
> > > > Jesse,
>
> > > > There is a lot of merit in your point of view with regards to one's
> > > > core.
>
> > > > But, what that also means is the death of the ecosystem as we know it.
> > > > The ecosystem as we know it used to develop "for" Twitter, enhancing
> > > > the Twitter offering.
>
> > > Death is a strong term.  I think what Twitter is saying (and has been
> > saying
> > > for the last 3 years - I just now am coming to full realization of this)
> > is
> > > that the ecosystem is changing.  They want Twitter to be ubiquitous.  For
> > > that to happen Apps must not be built around Twitter - Twitter must be
> > built
> > > around Apps.  That's why @anywhere is soon going to be launched.  It
> > should
> > > be a complement to your technology, not the other way around. (I'm just
> > as
> > > guilty of this as anyone, but I'm really thinking now)
>
> > > Jesse
>
> > --
> > To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.
>
> --
> Abraham Williams | Developer for hire |http://abrah.am
> PoseurTech Labs | Projects |http://labs.poseurtech.com
> This email is: [ ] shareable [x] ask first [ ] private.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie

[Dewald Pretorius]

If you're an entrpreneur with strong ethical standards, then never
ever accept investment capital.

Investors could not give a shit about your ethical qualms or
objections, and they are most certainly not going to accept a lower
exit because of them  If you don't play ball, they simply replace you
with someone who will.

Whenever I read about an entrepreneur joyously announcing that he got
such-and-such amount of venture capital, I think to myself, "Dude (or
dudess), I hope you realize that you have just sold your soul and
handed over control of your destiny to someone else."

On Apr 10, 4:23 pm, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" 
wrote:
> On 04/10/2010 11:45 AM, Arnaud Meunier wrote:
>
> > We shouldn’t “fill holes” anymore, Wilson said. The thing is Twitter
> > has deliberately kept a lot of holes opened, encouraging us to fill
> > them (and lots of applications have been doing it with innovation, by
> > the way).
>
> I don't know that it's "deliberate" - a lot of it has to do with the
> growth dynamics of the Twitter ecosystem in particular and "social
> media" in general. I've been on Twitter since early 2007 - in fact,
> @znmeb predates @twitter. ;-) It was an "exclusive club" and something
> that relatively few people knew about.
>
> I used Twitter rarely until the "financial crisis" of fall 2008. Maybe
> it's a coincidence, but I don't think it is, that the main growth spurt
> in Twitter user IDs (http://meb.tw/b6WCzv) began towards the end of 2008
> after the election of Barack Obama brought national media attention to
> Twitter. That was when I discovered the Portland Twitter community and
> began using Twitter "in earnest."
>
> Wilson is a venture capitalist - he takes *calculated* risks. He blogs
> to help his investments pay off, so his clients make money, thereby
> attracting more money to his firm. He is on the board of *directors* of
> Twitter. Directors *direct*. They may also advise, but I'm not privy to
> the exact mix of direction and advice he provides. In any event, he is
> no doubt keenly aware of the dynamics of the ecosystem. His advice, as
> expressed in his blog post, is worth consideration.
>
>
>
> > Now we’re supposed to dig, create new holes, and fill them. Okay!
> > There are a lot of ideas to have around Twitter, lots of new holes to
> > dig.
>
> There are also numerous open positions at Twitter. Some of the holes
> Twitter wants to fill appear to be "revealed" in the job descriptions. ;-)
>
> > But the question is still the same: "What will be left up to the
> > ecosystem and what will be created on the platform?"
>
> Because of the growth dynamics in social media, I don't think anyone, in
> the Twitter ecosystem or outside of it, can answer that. There are some
> (fairly) simple models of such things, but human behavior is hard to
> predict and bloggers and pundits and VCs can only speculate, collect as
> many hard numbers as possible and build models with them.
>
> > I think I'm not the only one here to fear that Twitter itself begins
> > to compete with the applications I created (or I plan to create). Yes,
> > it's fun to dig holes and to fill them. But it also takes time and
> > money, and it's like the game was going to be much more risky than it
> > used to be.
>
> Again, that's not necessarily certain as long as there are uncertainties
> in Twitter usage patterns and in the competitive landscape of "social
> media". Wilson's blog post is, I believe, a pretty good overview of the
> current state of the ecosystem, but how it evolves is not independent of
> the competition and the consumer. And neither is the allocation of
> resources between the Twitter entity and third party developers, large
> and small.
>
> --
> M. Edward (Ed) Boraskyhttp://borasky-research.net/about-smartznmeb/@znmeb
>
> "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." ~ Paul Erdős


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[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie

[Dewald Pretorius]

Chad,

Sometimes (well, okay, almost always) I just don't feel like citing
all possible caveats to what I'm saying. I'm not writing here with
visions of possible literary grandeur, potential book deals, or
speaking engagements. I call shit like I see it. Sometimes I'm right,
sometimes I'm wrong. It's just my opinion. Don't take what I say as
gospel.

Yes, there are ethical investors too. But, when the entrepeneur's
ethics clash with the investor's ethics, or lack thereof, guess who is
going to win. It does not require board level action or majority vote
to put pressure on an entrepreneur. Simple verbal threats regarding
current and future investments often suffice.

On Apr 10, 6:13 pm, Chad Etzel  wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 1:21 PM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > If you're an entrpreneur with strong ethical standards, then never
> > ever accept investment capital.
>
> You cannot be serious.
>
> Believe it or not there are ethical investors out there. Also,
> bootstrapping a company that goes huge is almost impossible,
> especially for the younger entrepreneurial crowd that can afford the
> time and lifestyle that it would entail but probably does not have
> tons of cash in the bank. Can you please site such a company that
> received zero outside investment dollars?
>
> -Chad

[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie

[Dewald Pretorius]

Maybe it's because I'm of the older generation, have been there and
done that, and have discovered that the top looks so green because of
all the crap that lies and flies there, that I hold the opinions that
I do.

I can understand folks' ambitions to "make" it. I guess in a way it's
like a green recruit versus a veteran soldier. When you ask a green
recruit about war, you will get answers about glorious deeds, killing
the evil enemy, the honor of dying for your country, great adventure,
and the like. When you ask a veteran soldier about war, you will get
answers about rotting corpses, pieces of human meat splattered
everywhere, being shit scared, losing your best buddies, and fighting
and taking risks only to protect your buddies.

Someone couldn't pay me enough to be at the "top". The lifestyle is
not worth the other sacrifices you need to make.

On Apr 10, 6:25 pm, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> Chad,
>
> Sometimes (well, okay, almost always) I just don't feel like citing
> all possible caveats to what I'm saying. I'm not writing here with
> visions of possible literary grandeur, potential book deals, or
> speaking engagements. I call shit like I see it. Sometimes I'm right,
> sometimes I'm wrong. It's just my opinion. Don't take what I say as
> gospel.
>
> Yes, there are ethical investors too. But, when the entrepeneur's
> ethics clash with the investor's ethics, or lack thereof, guess who is
> going to win. It does not require board level action or majority vote
> to put pressure on an entrepreneur. Simple verbal threats regarding
> current and future investments often suffice.
>
> On Apr 10, 6:13 pm, Chad Etzel  wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 1:21 PM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > > If you're an entrpreneur with strong ethical standards, then never
> > > ever accept investment capital.
>
> > You cannot be serious.
>
> > Believe it or not there are ethical investors out there. Also,
> > bootstrapping a company that goes huge is almost impossible,
> > especially for the younger entrepreneurial crowd that can afford the
> > time and lifestyle that it would entail but probably does not have
> > tons of cash in the bank. Can you please site such a company that
> > received zero outside investment dollars?
>
> > -Chad- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie

[Dewald Pretorius]

LMAO. No thanks. I'm getting a little too old for dodging eggs and
tomatoes.

On second thoughts, I could toss a mean salad if I just remember to
bring the lettuce.

On Apr 11, 3:23 am, PJB  wrote:
> +1 for Dewald getting his own session at Chirp! ;)  (Seriously!)
>
> On Apr 10, 2:49 pm, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
>
>
>
> > Maybe it's because I'm of the older generation, have been there and
> > done that, and have discovered that the top looks so green because of
> > all the crap that lies and flies there, that I hold the opinions that
> > I do.
>
> > I can understand folks' ambitions to "make" it. I guess in a way it's
> > like a green recruit versus a veteran soldier. When you ask a green
> > recruit about war, you will get answers about glorious deeds, killing
> > the evil enemy, the honor of dying for your country, great adventure,
> > and the like. When you ask a veteran soldier about war, you will get
> > answers about rotting corpses, pieces of human meat splattered
> > everywhere, being shit scared, losing your best buddies, and fighting
> > and taking risks only to protect your buddies.
>
> > Someone couldn't pay me enough to be at the "top". The lifestyle is
> > not worth the other sacrifices you need to make.
>
> > On Apr 10, 6:25 pm, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
>
> > > Chad,
>
> > > Sometimes (well, okay, almost always) I just don't feel like citing
> > > all possible caveats to what I'm saying. I'm not writing here with
> > > visions of possible literary grandeur, potential book deals, or
> > > speaking engagements. I call shit like I see it. Sometimes I'm right,
> > > sometimes I'm wrong. It's just my opinion. Don't take what I say as
> > > gospel.
>
> > > Yes, there are ethical investors too. But, when the entrepeneur's
> > > ethics clash with the investor's ethics, or lack thereof, guess who is
> > > going to win. It does not require board level action or majority vote
> > > to put pressure on an entrepreneur. Simple verbal threats regarding
> > > current and future investments often suffice.
>
> > > On Apr 10, 6:13 pm, Chad Etzel  wrote:
>
> > > > On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 1:21 PM, Dewald Pretorius  
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > If you're an entrpreneur with strong ethical standards, then never
> > > > > ever accept investment capital.
>
> > > > You cannot be serious.
>
> > > > Believe it or not there are ethical investors out there. Also,
> > > > bootstrapping a company that goes huge is almost impossible,
> > > > especially for the younger entrepreneurial crowd that can afford the
> > > > time and lifestyle that it would entail but probably does not have
> > > > tons of cash in the bank. Can you please site such a company that
> > > > received zero outside investment dollars?
>
> > > > -Chad- Hide quoted text -
>
> > > - Show quoted text -


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[twitter-dev] Re: Fred Wilson article on Twitter API

[Dewald Pretorius]

You are also free and welcome to express your opinions, even when
hiding behind a veil of anonymity.

On Apr 11, 9:03 am, notinfluential  wrote:
> Totally over-dramatic.  And way beyond annoying at this point.
>
> Dewald, quit your whining and either get back to coding and doing
> something productive, or maybe you should aim your posts at this group
> instead:http://groups.google.com/group/delusional-socialist-development-talk
>
> @notinfluential
>
> On Apr 10, 11:05 am, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
>
>
>
> > > Twitter has now displayed a distinctive predatorial stance towards the
> > > developer ecosystem.
>
> > That's incredibly overdramatic, I think. We have, and continue to  
> > maintain a platform that will allow for a vibrant ecosystem.  We want  
> > everybody to succeed.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -


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[twitter-dev] Streaming API TOS

[Dewald Pretorius]

With reference to:
http://twitter.com/pdfs/streaming_api_eula.pdf

Section 5 (ii) (e):
"You may only use the Content and Content Feed and any data resulting
or provided therefrom for internal purposes only and, unless expressly
authorized herein, you may not publicly release or disclose any data
or usage statistics or other information (in the aggregate or
otherwise) regarding the Content."

Question:

Assumimg I build a website that uses the Streaming API, is my
interpretation correct that the following is against the TOS?

1) Counting and displaying to the website users how many times the
word "earthquake" occurs in tweets over a certain period of time.

2) Building and displaying to the website users a tag cloud of words/
phrases in tweets.

[twitter-dev] Re: Streaming API TOS

[Dewald Pretorius]

Thanks for the quick response, John.

The best will then be to wait for post-Chirp.

As is, the current EULA could also be interpreted to prevent such
uses, and that kind of nebulous wording is no basis upon which to
expend any creative or development effort.

On Apr 11, 9:20 pm, John Kalucki  wrote:
> Both of those use cases are fine. The intent was to prevent people from
> publishing counts of Tweets per day or similar metrics. (I make no pretense
> at defending this intent, I'm the messenger.) Go forth and wordle.
>
> This EULA is near the end of its life and has been rewritten into the
> Commercial Data License, which Doug and Barkari will be discussing on day
> two of Chirp. If you have questions about how access under the EULA will
> evolve to access under the License, that would be a good place to start.
>
> -John Kaluckihttp://twitter.com/jkalucki
> Infrastructure, Twitter Inc.
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 4:22 PM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > With reference to:
> >http://twitter.com/pdfs/streaming_api_eula.pdf
>
> > Section 5 (ii) (e):
> > "You may only use the Content and Content Feed and any data resulting
> > or provided therefrom for internal purposes only and, unless expressly
> > authorized herein, you may not publicly release or disclose any data
> > or usage statistics or other information (in the aggregate or
> > otherwise) regarding the Content."
>
> > Question:
>
> > Assumimg I build a website that uses the Streaming API, is my
> > interpretation correct that the following is against the TOS?
>
> > 1) Counting and displaying to the website users how many times the
> > word "earthquake" occurs in tweets over a certain period of time.
>
> > 2) Building and displaying to the website users a tag cloud of words/
> > phrases in tweets.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -


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[twitter-dev] Re: Some thoughts leading up to Chirp

[Dewald Pretorius]

Ryan,

Thanks for attempting to step into an emotionally charged environment
and clarifying things.

However, to be quite frank, the argument about "confusion in the Apple
app store" gives off a distinct spinning sound. Very loud, in fact. It
may be one of the reasons for acquiring Tweetie, but to cite it as the
primary and only reason immediately sets of all flavors of BS alarms.


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[twitter-dev] Re: Some thoughts leading up to Chirp

[Dewald Pretorius]

Justyn,

Trust me, this has nothing to do with negativity.

When Ryan sets the clear expectation of, "My promise is that ... we
will be sincere and honest in our communication with you," and in the
same breath expects us to believe that Tweetie was acquired primarily
or solely to avoid confusion in the app store, I go, "Now wait a
second... No, man, don't do this. Not in the same breath."

Tweetie really, honestly, wasn't acquired to own the iPhone / iPad
eyeballs, capture the bulk of future ad (and other) revenue on that
platform, and form an intellectual property base to extend to Android
and other mobile platforms to own those eyeballs and revenue?

On Apr 12, 12:58 am, Justyn  wrote:
> Regardless of the companies position moving forward, there are great
> people working at Twitter who sincerely care about the developer
> community, including Ryan. If things are unfair, you can bet they feel
> it too. They're still figuring it out. I don't see them implementing
> any of the stuff your software does, so I don't understand the
> constant negativity. You complained that they weren't communicating,
> and when they do you call it BS. Life's too short man.
>
> The whole situation the last few days reminds me a lot of this 
> clip:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLni3wbndls
>
> Justyn
>
> On Apr 11, 8:05 pm, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
>
>
>
> > Ryan,
>
> > Thanks for attempting to step into an emotionally charged environment
> > and clarifying things.
>
> > However, to be quite frank, the argument about "confusion in the Apple
> > app store" gives off a distinct spinning sound. Very loud, in fact. It
> > may be one of the reasons for acquiring Tweetie, but to cite it as the
> > primary and only reason immediately sets of all flavors of BS alarms.- Hide 
> > quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] OAuth 2.0

[Dewald Pretorius]

Raffi,

Is there a spot where one can read the draft specs of OAuth 2.0? I
don't see it on oauth.net.


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[twitter-dev] Re: Some thoughts leading up to Chirp

[Dewald Pretorius]

Not only do we feel entitled, we ARE entitled to an open and honest
explanation when open and honest communication is offered and promised
to us.

There are two possible paths to follow:

a) Give us spin, and don't promise open and honest communication.

b) Promise us open and honest communication, and give us exactly that,
not spin.

Those are the two paths that do not undermine credibility, because
then we know what to expect, and we get what we expect.

On Apr 12, 10:34 am, notinfluential  wrote:
> On Apr 12, 2:44 am, Jason Rundell  wrote:
>
> > When will Twitter answer: 1) Why did Twitter acquire Tweetie? 2) What
> > is Twitter planning to do with Tweetie?
>
> Since when does Twitter owe you or any of us any sort of explanation
> for their business practices?
>
> Lemme get this straight.  Twitter is FREE.  The Twitter API is public,
> well documented, and FREE.  Our privilege is to build tools and
> businesses on top of Twitter's FREE services.  Twitter doesn't want a
> cut of your business.  They don't require approval of your apps.  But
> for some reason you (and others) feel entitled to an explanation, or
> details somehow outlining their strategy and practices?
>
> The tone of this group never ceases to amaze me.  Get back to coding
> and building cool stuff.
>
> @notinfluential


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[twitter-dev] Re: OAuth 2.0

[Dewald Pretorius]

Thanks. Just want to get a sense of what's coming up. The spec is an
awesome piece of work.

On Apr 12, 10:59 am, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> *http://github.com/theRazorBlade/draft-ietf-oauth*
> *
> *
> like i said before, as this is just a draft, i rather not our mailing list
> turn into a discussion of it just yet (once we start implementing it, then
> all bets are off :P).  if there are questions and/or comments, just feel
> free to reach out to me directly.
>
> On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 6:22 AM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > Raffi,
>
> > Is there a spot where one can read the draft specs of OAuth 2.0? I
> > don't see it on oauth.net.
>
> > --
> > To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.
>
> --
> Raffi Krikorian
> Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/raffi

[twitter-dev] Re: Promoted Tweets and the API?

[Dewald Pretorius]

Don't be too hasty with that ad blocking code.

1) It sounds as if Twitter will share ad revenue with external apps.

2) It very well might be against (new) API TOS to use the API and
block ads (I would do that if I were them).

On Apr 13, 10:48 am, Duane Roelands  wrote:
> I'm curious about this myself. One of the first things end users are
> going to ask for is a way to block these ads from their timelines.
> Don't kid yourself; there's a reason why AdBlock is such a popular
> Firefox plugin.
>
> Secondary question: Is the first step towards paid Twitter accounts,
> where free users have to receive ads and paid users do not?  Straight
> answers here would be appreciated.
>
> On 13 Apr, 05:28, Tim  wrote:
>
>
>
> > I've been looking around for information on how the new "promoted
> > tweets" advertising feature will affect the API, and I've not really
> > found anything. I gather that it's a two phase approach starting with
> > search and then rolling out to timelines, but can anyone here
> > clarify:
> > (a) whether API responses will include promoted tweets,
> > (b) whether these tweets will be identified as ads
> > (c) whether third parties are 'obligated' to present them to users
> > (d) whether there will be an API Terms of Use as a result- Hide quoted text 
> > -
>
> - Show quoted text -


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[twitter-dev] Chirp on Justin.tv

[Dewald Pretorius]

I notice that the Chirp channel is set to a private channel.
http://www.justin.tv/twitterchirp

Is it going to be made public on Wednesday, or else, where do we get
the Access Code?


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[twitter-dev] API Weird

[Dewald Pretorius]

http://api.twitter.com/1/

This also works:

http://api.twitter.com/raffi/

Wouldn't it make more sense to kick back 404s on the api subdomain?

[twitter-dev] Basic Auth Deprecation

[Dewald Pretorius]

Is Basic Auth going to be deprecated (as in hard switched-off) in
June, or are you in June going to announce depracation, with the hard
switch-off then coming a few months later?


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[twitter-dev] Re: Basic Auth Deprecation

[Dewald Pretorius]

Could you please announce the hard turn off date somewhere on one of
your Twitter blogs about a month ahead of time, so that we all have an
official source to point our users to when we explain to them why
we're converting everything over to OAuth?

On Apr 13, 8:19 pm, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> we have announced deprecation, and will hard turn off basic authentication
> in june.  the exact date has not been set, but i presume it will be later in
> the month.
>
> Is Basic Auth going to be deprecated (as in hard switched-off) in
>
> > June, or are you in June going to announce depracation, with the hard
> > switch-off then coming a few months later?
>
> --
> Raffi Krikorian
> Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/raffi


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[twitter-dev] Re: New rate limit headers for users/search

[Dewald Pretorius]

Uhm... wait a second..

I distinctly remember you guys (Raffi, I think I'm looking at you)
said that secondary rate limits were dropped completely.

On Apr 13, 8:32 pm, Dana Contreras  wrote:
> We've added a new set of HTTP response headers to users/search to document
> its secondary rate limit:
>
> * X-FeatureRateLimit-Limit
> * X-FeatureRateLimit-Remaining
> * X-FeatureRateLimit-Reset
> * X-FeatureRateLimit-Class
>
> Calls to users/search are rate limited by the standard REST API rate limit,
> as well as by a secondary rate limit that applies only to users/search (60
> calls per hour). If either of these limits is exceeded, access to
> users/search is restricted until the limits reset.
>
> The new headers provide information about the secondary rate limit in the
> same way that the existing X-RateLimit headers document the standard REST
> API rate limit. Both sets of headers will be sent in response to calls to
> users/search.
>
> You can find more information about this update 
> here:https://apiwiki.twitter.com/Rate-limiting
>
> --
> Dana Contreras
> Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/DanaDanger


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[twitter-dev] Re: New rate limit headers for users/search

[Dewald Pretorius]

Did I tell you that the dog chewed my dictionary yesterday? Search,
show, it's now all so confusing.

On Apr 13, 8:40 pm, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> on bulk user show.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > Uhm... wait a second..
>
> > I distinctly remember you guys (Raffi, I think I'm looking at you)
> > said that secondary rate limits were dropped completely.
>
> > On Apr 13, 8:32 pm, Dana Contreras  wrote:
> > > We've added a new set of HTTP response headers to users/search to
> > document
> > > its secondary rate limit:
>
> > > * X-FeatureRateLimit-Limit
> > > * X-FeatureRateLimit-Remaining
> > > * X-FeatureRateLimit-Reset
> > > * X-FeatureRateLimit-Class
>
> > > Calls to users/search are rate limited by the standard REST API rate
> > limit,
> > > as well as by a secondary rate limit that applies only to users/search
> > (60
> > > calls per hour). If either of these limits is exceeded, access to
> > > users/search is restricted until the limits reset.
>
> > > The new headers provide information about the secondary rate limit in the
> > > same way that the existing X-RateLimit headers document the standard REST
> > > API rate limit. Both sets of headers will be sent in response to calls to
> > > users/search.
>
> > > You can find more information about this update here:
> >https://apiwiki.twitter.com/Rate-limiting
>
> > > --
> > > Dana Contreras
> > > Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/DanaDanger
>
> > --
> > To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.
>
> --
> Raffi Krikorian
> Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/raffi- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] Re: Some thoughts leading up to Chirp

[Dewald Pretorius]

Peter,

It's probably better to ask those questions in a new thread. With all
the media attention, these Tweetie-related threads are probably still
a little too hot or "toxic" for Twitter employees to reply on them.

On Apr 13, 9:28 pm, Peter Denton  wrote:
> also, I know no one wants to spill beans for the sake of spammers, but can
> team platform shed some light on app suspensions?
>
> obviously, there are the clear no no's but I have had an app suspended
> because the title was "analytics", thus some reserved word for twitter inc.
>
> Also, do denial of oAuth requests come into play?


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[twitter-dev] Re: Basic Auth Deprecation

[Dewald Pretorius]

OAuth has benefits all around for everybody. In addition to the
benefits already mentioned:

1) For a web app like mine, it saves a TON of support workload with
people who change their Twitter password, don't change it in my
system, and then blame my system for not working because it's not able
to access their Twitter account.

2) If your app has its own API, you'll quickly understand the need for
OAuth and some form of control over the services that access your API.
I just haven't had the time to put an OAuth server on my own API (have
been too busy taking down my Christmas decorations these past week or
three), but it's coming. You really get annoyed when spammers cram
their crap into your system via ip-hopping proxies, and there's very
little you can do about it apart from finding the shit and deleting it
afterwards.


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[twitter-dev] User Streams API

[Dewald Pretorius]

>From John's announcement:

"User streams permissions are not tuned for service-to-service
integration, rather they are tuned for end-user-display applications."

Needless to say, it is a big disappointment that the user streams API
is not available for services, but only for desktop apps.

I could have saved me (and others) much processing, and eliminated a
lot of delays, in certain aspects of the services that we provide to
users.


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[twitter-dev] Re: User Streams API

[Dewald Pretorius]

John,

My apologies. I should have said, "would have". English is my second
language.

It will be great if user streams are going to be available to services
at some point in the near future. Specifically, real-time notification
of social graph changes.

If that's on your road map, then please say so. Because, in your long
range guidance, what was said was simply that user streams are not
available to services.

On Apr 14, 4:22 pm, John Kalucki  wrote:
> Dewalt,
>
> We can't do everything at once. We can't release everything at once. We have
> to pick the biggest return features, then let the features trickle down
> where possible. Everything in user streams can be applied to service streams
> in good time, but there are privacy issues and some tricky scale issue to be
> sorted out before we can do service integrations on much of this data.
>
> This feature couldn't have saved you any effort -- it hasn't even been
> released yet. We're in a preview period way way out in front of launch. This
> was clear in my doc. We're giving you long range guidance.
>
> Seriously.
>
> -John Kaluckihttp://twitter.com/jkalucki
> Infrastructure, Twitter Inc.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 12:08 PM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > From John's announcement:
>
> > "User streams permissions are not tuned for service-to-service
> > integration, rather they are tuned for end-user-display applications."
>
> > Needless to say, it is a big disappointment that the user streams API
> > is not available for services, but only for desktop apps.
>
> > I could have saved me (and others) much processing, and eliminated a
> > lot of delays, in certain aspects of the services that we provide to
> > users.
>
> > --
> > To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] dev.twitter.com

[Dewald Pretorius]

Okay, this seriously rocks.

Congrats to everyone who worked on making dev.twitter.com happen.


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[twitter-dev] Re: Annotation details

[Dewald Pretorius]

Raffi,

Is the planning for everyone's annotations to be available to everyone
else, or will there be private namespaces accessible only to the
source application?


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[twitter-dev] @anywhere hashtag hovercards

[Dewald Pretorius]

How about an @anywhere hovercard for hashtags?

Get those promoted tweets displayed all over the place? ;-)


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[twitter-dev] Re: Creating or editing applications through dev.twitter.com causes apps to lose "write access"

[Dewald Pretorius]

In that case, you might not want to edit your app settings through
dev. because since early this morning, the old edit URL [1] has been
throwing a fail whale. You won't be able to restore your r/w setting.

[1] http://twitter.com/oauth_clients/details/

On Apr 15, 5:12 pm, "Mike Davis (mcdavis)"  wrote:
> When creating or editing an app through the new dev.twitter.com site,
> the application will lose (or never be permitted) "write access" and
> will only have "read access".
>
> The options to choose between "read access" or "read & write access"
> that's on the old oAuth page are no longer accessible on the new dev
> page.
>
> Is this being done away with or was it just left out?

[twitter-dev] Re: Creating or editing applications through dev.twitter.com causes apps to lose "write access"

[Dewald Pretorius]

Every single time I go to https://twitter.com/apps and click the
linked name of my app, I get an over capacity fail whale.

I also just now noticed that there was an approved app in my
Connections tab, which said the app was authorized today at 5:17 AM.
And I *most* certainly did not authorize that app today (or ever).
It's one of my "placeholder" apps, and I use those consumer keys
absolutely nowhere.

On Apr 15, 5:40 pm, "Mike Davis (mcdavis)"  wrote:
> Yeah, I was able to switch my app back via the old page, but just
> wanted to bring it to attention.
>
> On Apr 15, 4:35 pm, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
>
>
>
> > In that case, you might not want to edit your app settings through
> > dev. because since early this morning, the old edit URL [1] has been
> > throwing a fail whale. You won't be able to restore your r/w setting.
>
> > [1]http://twitter.com/oauth_clients/details/
>
> > On Apr 15, 5:12 pm, "Mike Davis (mcdavis)"  wrote:
>
> > > When creating or editing an app through the new dev.twitter.com site,
> > > the application will lose (or never be permitted) "write access" and
> > > will only have "read access".
>
> > > The options to choose between "read access" or "read & write access"
> > > that's on the old oAuth page are no longer accessible on the new dev
> > > page.
>
> > > Is this being done away with or was it just left out?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] Re: User Stream's API usage

[Dewald Pretorius]

John,

I know it is still some ways off into the future, but would you
consider segmenting out the areas of user streams that don't have
privacy implications, to make those parts of the stream available to
services as a higher priority compared with the rest?

For me, social graph changes are the biggest pain point in terms of
processing and delays (and in some cases impracticality) in providing
services to users.

I can imagine that there will be scalability issues, because a service
will have to be able to subscribe to the streams of hundreds of
thousands or more users.

Nonetheless, consideration will be much appreciated.

On Apr 15, 8:32 pm, John Kalucki  wrote:
> Once the conference is over, we'll open the preview up to developers
> everywhere. A few more hours to go...
>
> -John Kaluckihttp://twitter.com/jkalucki
> Infrastructure, Twitter Inc.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 3:49 PM, Isaiah Carew  wrote:
>
> > Any chance on getting access to a beta of these from outside chirp?  I had
> > to come home this afternoon and didn't get to play too much while i was
> > there, but would be really interested in playing more.  I understand it's
> > not ready for roll out.  Just looking to start the development process.
>
> > isaiah
> >http://twitter.com/isaiah
>
> > On Apr 14, 2010, at 9:26 PM, John Kalucki wrote:
>
> > I should have encouraged folks to understand the Streaming API first. You
> > can read up on all the details here:
> >http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Streaming-API-Documentation
>
> > But, for a prototype, just dive right in.
>
> > -John
>
> > On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 9:15 PM, Mark McBride wrote:
>
> >> Some sample APIs...
>
> >> curl 
> >> -u:http://chirpstream.twitter.com/2b/user.jso
> >> n
>
> >> Will give you a stream of your home timeline, social activity from your
> >> friends, and direct messages.
>
> >> curl -u: 
> >> "http://chirpstream.twitter.com/2b/user.jso
> >> n?track=#chirp"
>
> >> Will give you all of the above, plus any tweets matching #chirp
>
> >> Does that clear it up?  If not, I'm currently near "The Coop".
>
> >>   ---Mark
>
> >>http://twitter.com/mccv
>
> >> On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 6:37 PM, Kovas Boguts 
> >> wrote:
>
> >>> Hi,
>
> >>> Is there any description of how to use this? I don't understand how to
> >>> use track with this or what is generally available for hack day. Thanks!
>
> >>> On Apr 14, 2010, at 4:17 PM, John Kalucki  wrote:
>
> >>>  Email me your account name. You are in, but not getting data. Also, is
>  this account following anyone?
>
>  Typos by iPhone.
>
>  On Apr 14, 2010, at 4:11 PM, Jud  wrote:
>
>   I'm in the chrip conference IP address range, but
> >http://chirpstream.twitter.com/2b/user.jsonusage isn't clear.
>
> > - the follow predicate in a POST doesn't work (should it?)
> > - track as a predicate gets accepted, but no data comes through (I get
> > a single '{"friends":[]}', but that's it)
> > - am I supposed to be tracking userids or names or keywords?
>
> > is the resource simply not turned on until later at/on the hackathon's
> > network?
>
> > --
> > To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.- Hide quoted 
> > text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] Re: Creating or editing applications through dev.twitter.com causes apps to lose "write access"

[Dewald Pretorius]

Ah, okay, that makes sense. It took the first app in the list and
automatically authorized it, and the first app in my list happens to
be a placeholder app.

On Apr 16, 12:22 pm, Taylor Singletary 
wrote:
> If you use the Twurl console, you're using your apps -- transparently behind
> the scenes it issues the Twurl console an access token and makes calls on
> your behalf.
>
> I'll look to get this business with read/write access resolved quickly.
>
> Taylor Singletary
> Developer Advocate, Twitterhttp://twitter.com/episod
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > Every single time I go tohttps://twitter.com/appsand click the
> > linked name of my app, I get an over capacity fail whale.
>
> > I also just now noticed that there was an approved app in my
> > Connections tab, which said the app was authorized today at 5:17 AM.
> > And I *most* certainly did not authorize that app today (or ever).
> > It's one of my "placeholder" apps, and I use those consumer keys
> > absolutely nowhere.
>
> > On Apr 15, 5:40 pm, "Mike Davis (mcdavis)"  wrote:
> > > Yeah, I was able to switch my app back via the old page, but just
> > > wanted to bring it to attention.
>
> > > On Apr 15, 4:35 pm, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
>
> > > > In that case, you might not want to edit your app settings through
> > > > dev. because since early this morning, the old edit URL [1] has been
> > > > throwing a fail whale. You won't be able to restore your r/w setting.
>
> > > > [1]http://twitter.com/oauth_clients/details/
>
> > > > On Apr 15, 5:12 pm, "Mike Davis (mcdavis)"  wrote:
>
> > > > > When creating or editing an app through the new dev.twitter.comsite,
> > > > > the application will lose (or never be permitted) "write access" and
> > > > > will only have "read access".
>
> > > > > The options to choose between "read access" or "read & write access"
> > > > > that's on the old oAuth page are no longer accessible on the new dev
> > > > > page.
>
> > > > > Is this being done away with or was it just left out?- Hide quoted
> > text -
>
> > > - Show quoted text -
>
> --
> Subscription 
> settings:http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en-
>  Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] @anywhere and JQuery

[Dewald Pretorius]

Does @anywhere check whether JQuery is already available/loaded on the
page?

If not, will it cause any problems / conflicts / bloating to have
JQuery loaded twice?


-- 
Subscription settings: 
http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en

[twitter-dev] Re: Local trends broken (and gone from home page?)

[Dewald Pretorius]

Perhaps Twitter should return more meaning full error messages when
API features are disabled, so that users don't see this:

http://twitpic.com/1g0e3w


On Apr 16, 1:23 pm, Abraham Williams <4bra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://status.twitter.com/post/516695583/local-trends-disabled
>
> Abraham
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 09:08, tofubeer  wrote:
> > This was reported about 2 days ago:
>
> >http://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/detail?id=1584
>
> >http://twitter.com/trends/current.xmland
> >http://api.twitter.com/1/trends/(any
> > number).xml
>
> > both return:
>
> > 
> >    /trends/current.xml
> >    Sorry, you do not have access to this endpoint.
> > 
>
> > I went to see if I could change the location that I am viewing trends
> > for on the website and I cannot find the functionality (though I
> > haven't tried since after the new home page, so perhaps I am not
> > looking in the right place).  I still see the "world" trends, just no
> > ability to change to the trends for a particular location.
>
> > Has something happened to local trends?
>
> > Thanks,
>
> > ..darcy
> > --
> > D'Arcy Smith
> > CTO, Terratap Technolgies Inc.
>
> > --
> > Subscription settings:
> >http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en
>
> --
> Abraham Williams | Developer for hire |http://abrah.am
> PoseurTech Labs | Projects |http://labs.poseurtech.com
> This email is: [ ] shareable [x] ask first [ ] private.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] Re: Early look at Annotations

[Dewald Pretorius]

Marcel,

I'd strongly urge you to consider a more structured and controlled
environment for annotations.

Ideally, I think an OAuth app must register a namespace, or subscribe
to an existing namespace of another app, before it can create
annotations in that namespace. And these registrations and
subscriptions must be reviewed and approved before an app can actually
contribute to a namespace.

Being as open and free as you currently have it, it's fertile soil for
the poisoning of any namespace by any rogue or not-so-nice app.

It's better to plan and create the controls ahead of time. You're
going to save everyone, including yourselves, a lot of effort and
time.

On Apr 16, 2:54 pm, Marcel Molina  wrote:
> Hey everyone. One of the things we talked about at Chirp is the new
> Annotations feature we're working on. In short, it allows you to annotate a
> tweet with structured metadata. We're still working on Annotations, but I
> wanted to share with a wider audience beyond those I was able to talk to in
> person at Chirp about how we're thinking of doing Annotations.
>
> * What is an annotation more exactly exactly?
>
> First off let's be clearer about what an annotation is. An annotation is a
> namespace, key, value triple. A tweet can have one or more annotations.
> Namespaces can have one or more key/value pairs.
>
> * How do I specify what annotations a tweet should have?
>
> Annotations are specified for a tweet when the tweet is created. When
> submitting a POST to /statuses/update, you'll include an "annotations"
> parameter with your annotations. We're thinking we'll provide two mechanisms
> for specifying what a tweet's annotations are:
>
>   1. JSON
>   2. form encoded parameters
>
> * How big can an annotation be and how many annotations can I attach to a
> tweet?
>
> There is no limit on the size of any given namespace, key or value but the
> entire set of all annotations for a given tweet can not exceed some fixed
> byte size. That size isn't set in stone yet. We will be starting small
> (probably 512 bytes) and growing it gradually as we incrementally roll out
> the feature so we can gauge its scalability at various sizes. We'd like to
> (no promises) have it end up around 2K. How you use that 2K is up to you.
> You can attach one honking annotation, or a thousand+ tiny ones. You can
> attach one namespace with hundreds of key/value pairs, or hundreds of
> namespaces with just one key/value pair. We want to keep things as flexible
> and open ended as possible.
>
> * What kind of data can go into an annotation?
>
> We'd like to allow for any arbitrary data to be stored in an annotation.
> Arbitrary Unicode? Sure. MIDI? Go for it. Emoji? Yes please! There might be
> some tricky edge cases though. Skip the rest of this paragraph if you don't
> care about the details of edge cases... For one, since these annotations
> will be serialized to, among other formats, XML, and we'd like to keep the
> XML succinct, the namespace and key components of an annotation triple would
> likely be an XML tag with its value as, well, its value. If that's the case
> then the data of the key must be a valid XML tag. This greatly limits what
> it can contain (not even spaces for example). If allowing all three elements
> of the triple to contain any arbitrary data is more important than a
> succinct XML payload then we'll design a more verbose XML payload. Up to you
> all really. I've included examples of both options below. Make a case for
> another proposal if you have strong opinions.
>
> * What constitutes a valid annotation?
>
> Aside from the size and data type restrictions listed above, another
> requirement is that namespaces and keys be non-empty values. Values, on the
> other hand, may be empty. In this way the namespace/key pair can be treated
> like a flag of sorts. It should be noted: I'd encourage everyone to always
> think of a namespace as a namespace, to think of a key as a key and to think
> of a value as a value. Don't take the fact that a value can be empty to mean
> that you can skip out on the whole namespace think and morph the namespace
> into a key and the key into a value. While open endedness and flexibility is
> a quality of the Annotations feature that I'm most excited about for the
> developer community, this kind of approach seems prone to causing confusion
> by undermining namespaces.
>
> * What namespaces can I write to? What namespaces can I read from?
>
> Anyone can write to or read from any namespace. We aren't planning on
> enforcing any policy that restricts someone else from adding an annotation
> with "your" namespace or seeing annotations only if they are logged in with
> a certain account. In the absence of some really compelling reason to do
> that, we want to err on the side of making this feature as flexible and open
> ended as possible. Namespaces aren't intended as a way for people to claim
> their little slice of the tweet space. Rather they are intended to
> dramatically i

[twitter-dev] Re: Early look at Annotations

[Dewald Pretorius]

Raffi,

It's not about people using or not using rogue apps. It's about rogue
apps poisoning the annotation data and ruining it for everybody.

Rogue apps can continue to refresh their consumer keys with new
accounts and OAuth app registrations, as soon as the one currently in
use is suspended.

Meaning, a new class of rogue app will emerge. Ones with the express
purpose of getting their data into the namespaces.

To name one example (with reference to Marcel's examples):

- A rogue app that creates tweets with an affiliate link in the
 namespace.

On Apr 16, 3:31 pm, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> > I'd strongly urge you to consider a more structured and controlled
> > environment for annotations.
>
> > Ideally, I think an OAuth app must register a namespace, or subscribe
> > to an existing namespace of another app, before it can create
> > annotations in that namespace. And these registrations and
> > subscriptions must be reviewed and approved before an app can actually
> > contribute to a namespace.
>
> > Being as open and free as you currently have it, it's fertile soil for
> > the poisoning of any namespace by any rogue or not-so-nice app.
>
> > It's better to plan and create the controls ahead of time. You're
> > going to save everyone, including yourselves, a lot of effort and
> > time.
>
> the same could happen right now - if somebody puts a $ before something,
> stock twits may try to parse that as a stock market commodity.  i don't see
> us (for some) enforcing anything on the namespaces, and will let the
> community try to work it out.
>
> if there happens to be a rogue app, then users will stop using it.
>
> --
> Raffi Krikorian
> Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/raffi
>
> --
> Subscription 
> settings:http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en-
>  Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] Re: My applications were Suspended

[Dewald Pretorius]

Brian,

It is not unreasonable for developers to hope that Twitter does not
suspend applications for "could violate rules" and "possible rule
violations." I trust this was just a slip of the tongue on your part.

We know you must maintain a good-citizen ecosystem.

For that to happen, we really do trust that you suspend applications
for actual rule violations, which you can point to as to how and when
you discovered those actual violations, and *not* for mere suspicion
of rule violations.

On Apr 23, 4:28 pm, Brian Truebe  wrote:
> Yes, the email that is sent out after an application is suspended does
> explain possible rule violations. This email is sent to the account
> that registered the application, so if you've registered an app with
> an auxiliary account not tied to an email address you check regularly
> then an app suspension may come as a rather unfortunate surprise.
>
> While there is no "sandbox," we're very open to discussing any
> concerns an app developer may have while they develop their app. The
> best course of action is to read the rules first while developing.  If
> you're still worried a feature you're developing may result in your
> users being suspended our your entire app being suspended then you can
> always email us at a...@twitter.com and we'll be happy to work with you
> to ensure the longevity of your application.  I hope this helps.
>
> -Brian
>
> On Apr 23, 11:37 am, John Meyer  wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 4/23/2010 10:58 AM, Brian Truebe wrote:
>
> > > My name is Brian Truebe and I am on the API Policy team, when apps are
> > > suspended they are sent a notice as to how to contest the suspension,
> > > however this may have gotten lost in the tubes.  Please email
> > > a...@twitter.com and let us know the app name and we'll see if we can
> > > sort this out.
> > > Sorry for the inconvenience.
>
> > > Regards,
> > > Brian
>
> > One question: does the e-mail have an explanation about why the
> > application was suspended in the first place (you mention how to contest
> > the suspension but nothing about what the suspension is about).  And is
> > there some way to create a "sandbox" for suspended apps where they can
> > re-test to see if they are in compliance with the rules before going out
> > into the real world Twitterverse?
>
> > --
> > Subscription 
> > settings:http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en-
> >  Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[twitter-dev] Re: countdown to OAuth / basic auth removal / OAuthcalypse

[Dewald Pretorius]

Raffi, that is super awesome. Thank you.

Any chance that you will have OAuth 2.0 in production before then?

On Apr 24, 12:40 pm, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> hi all.
>
> you're going to be hearing a lot from me over the next 9 weeks.  our plan is
> to turn off basic authorization on the API by june 30, 2010 -- developers
> will have to switch over to OAuth by that time.  between now and then, there
> will be a *lot* of information coming along with tips on how to use OAuth
> Echo, xAuth, etc.  we really want to make this transition as easy as we can
> for everybody.
>
> as always, please feel free to reach out to this group, or to @twitterapi
> directly.  if you need help remembering the date -http://bit.ly/twcountdown
> .
>
> --
> Raffi Krikorian
> Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/raffi
>
> --
> Subscription 
> settings:http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en

[twitter-dev] Re: countdown to OAuth / basic auth removal / OAuthcalypse

[Dewald Pretorius]

Raffi,

We really need a resolution for this issue before Basic Auth is
deprecated.

It sounds as if Twitter is telling developers of web apps that they
cannot provide service to Chinese users, and other users behind
firewalls that block access to twitter.com. But that can't be right,
can it?

On Apr 25, 4:49 am, jaronbarends  wrote:
> I moved my web based app from basic auth to oAuth just last week. I
> subsequently got several pleas from Chinese users to put the old
> version back up, as they could no longer use my app, since access to
> Twitter.com is blocked in China.
>
> This issue has discussed in this group before 
> here:https://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/browse_threa...
>
> Being a frontend developer, I may have misunderstood the outcome of
> that discussion (I certainly hope so). But from Raffi's last comment
> there ("understood, but, right now, not in the plan.  web apps will
> have to use the standard oauth workflow.") I understand that web app
> users in countries like China where twitter is blocked will simply no
> longer be able to use Twitter via the web.
>
> Have I understood this correctly? If not, how can I make sure users in
> blocked countries can still use my web app? If my users can no longer
> use my app, what do you suggest I recommend them?
>
> Jaron
>
> On Apr 24, 5:40 pm, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
>
>
>
> > hi all.
>
> > you're going to be hearing a lot from me over the next 9 weeks.  our plan is
> > to turn off basic authorization on the API by june 30, 2010 -- developers
> > will have to switch over to OAuth by that time.  between now and then, there
> > will be a *lot* of information coming along with tips on how to use OAuth
> > Echo, xAuth, etc.  we really want to make this transition as easy as we can
> > for everybody.
>
> > as always, please feel free to reach out to this group, or to @twitterapi
> > directly.  if you need help remembering the date -http://bit.ly/twcountdown
> > .
>
> > --
> > Raffi Krikorian
> > Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/raffi
>
> > --
> > Subscription 
> > settings:http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en

[twitter-dev] Re: countdown to OAuth / basic auth removal / OAuthcalypse

[Dewald Pretorius]

Raffi,

One solution, which I know won't win the popularity prize, is for
Twitter to relax its XAuth restrictions and allow web apps to use full
OAuth and/or XAuth, depending on what works best for them.

In my case, I will still use full OAuth because it's so much better
than dealing with Twitter credential issues. But, I will add a small
link below the Twitter authorize button on my site that says something
like, "Can't get to Twitter.com?" which then leads to a username-
password entry form, and then triggers an XAuth authorization.

On Apr 26, 12:34 am, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> before this gets out of hand - i, personally, am very sensitive to these
> issues.  i've been spending some brain power trying to come up with a
> solution.  if people have suggestions, then please feel free to reach out to
> me personally and off list.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 7:54 PM, Ron B  wrote:
> > China's policy didn't just recently change, Twitter's did.  So it is
> > Twitter telling us that we may not be able to support China and other
> > firewall blocked countries any longer.  It is, after all, within
> > Twitter's power to continue to support Basic Auth.  It is their
> > conscious decision not to, despite the significant negative
> > ramifications being brought to their attention.
>
> > In an earlier comment from Twitter: " twitter.com is trying to drive
> > people to understand and discover what's going on in the world."  No
> > one in the world needs to "understand and discover what's going on"
> > more than the people of these communist-block countries that otherwise
> > see only what their governments allow them to see.  It is unfortunate
> > that Twitter plans to turn their back on them.  Then again, what's a
> > billion people here or there?...
>
> > On Apr 25, 9:04 pm, Abraham Williams <4bra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It is not twitter telling you it is China.
>
> > > --
> > > Little androids dreaming of Nexus Ones compiled this text.
>
> > > On Apr 25, 2010 6:53 PM, "Dewald Pretorius"  wrote:
>
> > > Raffi,
>
> > > We really need a resolution for this issue before Basic Auth is
> > > deprecated.
>
> > > It sounds as if Twitter is telling developers of web apps that they
> > > cannot provide service to Chinese users, and other users behind
> > > firewalls that block access to twitter.com. But that can't be right,
> > > can it?
>
> > > On Apr 25, 4:49 am, jaronbarends  wrote:> I
> > moved my web based app from ba...
> > > > This issue has discussed in this group before here:
>
> > >https://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/browse_threa...
>
> > > > Being a frontend developer, I may have misunderstood the outcome of
> > > > that discussion (I certain...
>
> > > --
> > > Subscription settings:
> >http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en
>
> --
> Raffi Krikorian
> Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/raffi

[twitter-dev] Re: countdown to OAuth / basic auth removal / OAuthcalypse

[Dewald Pretorius]

I know it's a compromise. But, it does serve the needs of a very large
number of users.

Maybe you could monitor the authentication profile of a web app. If it
uses more XAuth than OAuth, then you know you need to contact the
owner. Or, you can set an automated percentage threshold, such as
"XAuth authentications from a particular consumer key cannot exceed
25% of all authentications from that key."

On Apr 26, 9:36 am, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
> > One solution, which I know won't win the popularity prize, is for
> > Twitter to relax its XAuth restrictions and allow web apps to use full
> > OAuth and/or XAuth, depending on what works best for them.
>
> > In my case, I will still use full OAuth because it's so much better
> > than dealing with Twitter credential issues. But, I will add a small
> > link below the Twitter authorize button on my site that says something
> > like, "Can't get to Twitter.com?" which then leads to a username-
> > password entry form, and then triggers an XAuth authorization.
>
> unfortunately, this defeats the purpose of oauth :(
>
> http://mehack.com/xauth-and-perhaps-the-need-for-socializing-ap
>
> --
> Raffi Krikorian
> Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/raffi
>
> --
> Subscription 
> settings:http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en

[twitter-dev] Re: countdown to OAuth / basic auth removal / OAuthcalypse

[Dewald Pretorius]

In fact, you could set a threshold per consumer key that you can vary.
In other words, you can then allow a higher percentage XAuth (even
100%) to an app that caters largely to a Chinese market. And 0% or 10%
to an app that caters largely to the USA market.

On Apr 26, 9:43 am, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> I know it's a compromise. But, it does serve the needs of a very large
> number of users.
>
> Maybe you could monitor the authentication profile of a web app. If it
> uses more XAuth than OAuth, then you know you need to contact the
> owner. Or, you can set an automated percentage threshold, such as
> "XAuth authentications from a particular consumer key cannot exceed
> 25% of all authentications from that key."
>
> On Apr 26, 9:36 am, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
>
>
>
> > > One solution, which I know won't win the popularity prize, is for
> > > Twitter to relax its XAuth restrictions and allow web apps to use full
> > > OAuth and/or XAuth, depending on what works best for them.
>
> > > In my case, I will still use full OAuth because it's so much better
> > > than dealing with Twitter credential issues. But, I will add a small
> > > link below the Twitter authorize button on my site that says something
> > > like, "Can't get to Twitter.com?" which then leads to a username-
> > > password entry form, and then triggers an XAuth authorization.
>
> > unfortunately, this defeats the purpose of oauth :(
>
> >http://mehack.com/xauth-and-perhaps-the-need-for-socializing-ap
>
> > --
> > Raffi Krikorian
> > Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/raffi
>
> > --
> > Subscription 
> > settings:http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en

[twitter-dev] Re: App needs more calls than what Twitter Whitelisted Account offers!

[Dewald Pretorius]

To be quite frank, you are filling a hole.

The functionality you are describing, identifying and getting rid of
spam followers, is Twitter's job and should be part of their core
system.

On Apr 28, 8:41 am, deadlychaos  wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> We are very excited to develop an App on Twitter ecosystem. We are
> developing something which removes all the spam from user's followers
> list and shows him how much exactly non-spam followers he has. But to
> perform such task, we need way more than what Twitter Whitelisted
> account offers (20,000). For an instance, Twitter CEO @EV himself has
> around 1.1 Million Followers. What we do is we have designed a set of
> algorithms which removes all the spam, inactive and such other
> followers and show how many exactly real followers the particular user
> has. But to do this (by rest api) we need to spend 1 call to calculate
> every 100 followers of the user. And once we get those 100 follower we
> need 1 more call to filter out spam followers. Also there are few more
> such tasks we need to perform to filter out the spam which needs more
> calls. So if for instance a user has more than 1 million followers,
> our system will not be able to calculate his overall non-spam
> followers. Also there is a chance when multiple users can try to check
> how many non-spam followers they have at the same time. All I need to
> ask is, how am I able to get more than one IP addresses white-listed
> (white-listing form states that we are able to whitelist more than one
> ip) and if such thing is possible, how can we use both the ip's to
> perform one single task of user having more than 1 million followers.
> Also we were thinking of getting more than one Twitter account white-
> listed associated to our business and then use them one by one when we
> use all the calls from one id. Is this feasible? If both the methods
> (White-listing IP and White-listing Accounts) are not a proper way to
> perform such task, what would you recommend us to do? We have spent
> countless nights getting this algorithms work and we even have tested
> them on small user account having less than 1000 followers and it
> works like charm. We are searching for solution since a month now. I
> hope we will get help here.
>
> Eagerly waiting for reply from Twitter.
> Thanks a lot in advance!

[twitter-dev] Re: Really, You're not going to suspend @julianperretta?

[Dewald Pretorius]

Ducking the artillery shells and verbal mortar rounds in this thread,
I just want to ask:

Did you know @shitmydadsays actually uses status.net, and pushes its
tweets from there into Twitter via the StatusNet-Twitter bridge?

On Apr 28, 11:21 am, Dossy Shiobara  wrote:
> On 4/28/10 10:18 AM, John Meyer wrote:
>
>
>
> > Spam I understand, but are you actually trying to report plagarism on a
> > bloody tweet?  Are you kidding me?  We're you planning on selling that
> > bit of wisdom somewhere? Spinning it off for a book deal?
>
> You mean, like @shitmydadsays?
>
> --
> Dossy Shiobara              | do...@panoptic.com |http://dossy.org/
> Panoptic Computer Network   |http://panoptic.com/
>   "He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
>     folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)

[twitter-dev] Re: Invalid / used nonce but only for certain user names?

[Dewald Pretorius]

Cory,

I have had similar issues. When you get that 401 error, you need to
back off for a second or two, recalculate the nonce, and then resubmit
the request.

On Apr 28, 10:52 pm, Cory  wrote:
> Anyone have any ideas about this? I'm really not sure where to go or
> what to check from here, and I need to get this taken care of. Any
> information would be appreciated!

[twitter-dev] Re: About update limits

[Dewald Pretorius]

I can't think of a use or requirement that would need more than 1,000
tweets per day.

Unless you're promoting teeth whitening affiliate links that
absolutely must be sent at a rate of one tweet every 30 seconds,
because we all know how quickly the teeth of some followers turn
yellow.

On Apr 29, 8:45 pm, Brian Sutorius  wrote:
> To clarify, statuses/update is not affected by rate-limit whitelisting
> as it's a POST call and we don't maintain a separate whitelist for
> boosting the daily tweet limit above 1000. While we do not give out
> the specifics around the "sub-limits," they *are* administered on a
> per-account basis and if you stay around your approximation of 20
> tweets per half-hour you should be fine.
>
> Brian Sutorius
>
> On Apr 29, 6:07 am, Raffi Krikorian  wrote:
>
>
>
> > the numbers are roughly broken up over the day.  and the limit applies to an
> > account.
>
> > and yes - there is a whitelisting for status/updates -- please e-mail
> > a...@twitter to ask for it.
>
> > On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 5:26 AM, akaii  wrote:
> > > This is what the FAQ has to say about status update limits:
>
> > > Updates: 1,000 per day. The daily update limit is further broken down
> > > into smaller limits for semi-hourly intervals. Retweets are counted as
> > > updates.
>
> > > I'm a little unclear as to what exactly is meant by "further broken
> > > down into smaller limits for semi-hourly intervals". Is the 1000 per
> > > day limit divided evenly between the 48 half hours each day (around 20
> > > or so tweets per half an hour?).
>
> > > Also, I'm assuming this limit applies to each unique account?
>
> > > Is this limit absolutely fixed? Or is there some equivalent to
> > > "whitelisting" for status/update limits as well?
>
> > > Thanks...
>
> > --
> > Raffi Krikorian
> > Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/raffi

[twitter-dev] Tons of Connection Refused

[Dewald Pretorius]

I'm getting tons of connection refused errors.

What's going on?

The API status is till giving a 100% up indicator.

[twitter-dev] Re: Tons of Connection Refused

[Dewald Pretorius]

John, Sorry, I should have update this thread.

It was the ThePlanet.com outage that affected me.

On May 3, 2:21 am, John Kalucki  wrote:
> Did this happen to start at 10pm PST / 05:00 UTC?
>
>
>
> On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 10:16 PM, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
> > I'm getting tons of connection refused errors.
>
> > What's going on?
>
> > The API status is till giving a 100% up indicator.

[twitter-dev] Blackbird Pie

[Dewald Pretorius]

http://media.twitter.com/blackbird-pie/

Can you guys add a meta data element to a tweet, which will provide a
"blackbird pie" hyperlink for a tweet.

Basically, the code behind the link should generate the code block
that Blackbird Pie currently generates. That way one can include a
Blackbird Pie tweet in an iframe, with the iframe source link coming
from the "blackbird pie" hyperlink in the tweet meta data.

Just a thought.

[twitter-dev] Re: users/show bug with nested user object

[Dewald Pretorius]

Over time I've learned it is a best practice to check the integrity of
a returned Twitter object despite the fact that the HTTP response code
is 200.

[twitter-dev] Intermittent 401 Errors

[Dewald Pretorius]

Since late yesterday (May 10), I've been getting intermittent "401
Could not authenticate you" errors.

This is on Twitter accounts and code that have been working for a very
long time. My code has not changed, and there is nothing wrong with
the Twitter accounts either. They are not suspended, or limited, and
the connection for my app is firmly present in the Connections tab.

One one call (I've validated this on mentions.json,
direct_messages.json, and friends_timeline.json) it would work and
give me a 200 with the data. On the very next call I get a 401 Could
not authenticate you. There is no discernable pattern.

Please don't ask me to capture TCP dumps. This is my live app, and I
am not going to mess with it to debug the API.

[twitter-dev] Re: Intermittent 401 Errors

[Dewald Pretorius]

In fact, the API seems to be really borked at the moment.

I've been running more tests on friends_timeline.json, and the
following happens:

1) Sometimes the connection is refused.
2) Sometimes I get a 200 OK with an empty JSON array, and seconds
later with the very next call on the same Twitter account I get a 200
OK with a fully populated JSON array.
3) On some accounts I get "401 Invalid / expired token", where the
token on my side has not changed and the connection is present in the
Twitter account's Connections tab.

[twitter-dev] Re: Intermittent 401 Errors

[Dewald Pretorius]

As well (I know it has been discussed elsewhere), I am consistently
seeing API response times in excess of 3 seconds per call. It is
actually rare to see one that takes less than 2 seconds. This is on
connections from Dallas. But, even using twitter.com in the web
browser from Canada is also painfully slow.

[twitter-dev] Re: Intermittent 401 Errors

[Dewald Pretorius]

Glen,

My system makes thousands of outgoing calls per minute, and a lot of
them are going to non-Twitter destinations. Even if it wouldn't mess
with my app, I'm not sending a TCP dump/log anywhere. There's nothing
inappropriate in there, but calls, destinations, and volume of calls
that my system makes are proprietary business information.

On May 11, 11:34 am, glenn gillen  wrote:
> On May 11, 3:21 pm, Dewald Pretorius  wrote:
>
> > As well (I know it has been discussed elsewhere), I am consistently
> > seeing API response times in excess of 3 seconds per call. It is
> > actually rare to see one that takes less than 2 seconds. This is on
> > connections from Dallas. But, even using twitter.com in the web
> > browser from Canada is also painfully slow.
>
> Dewald,
>
> I can't provide any constructive feedback to your problem, but I was
> wondering if you had any input on this message I posted earlier 
> today:http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/msg/27ea7a163...
>
> Also, having had to play the tech support role for a while in a
> previous life, is running tcpdump on a live server for 30-60 seconds
> really going to mess with your app in any noticeable way? The majority
> of the time when people ask for that kind of information it's not to
> satisfy their sadomasochistic desires to trawl through network dumps,
> it's to make their life easier while trying to identify/recreate and
> fix your problem.
>
> --
> Glenn Gillenhttp://glenngillen.com/