I would love to see twitter include the original unwrapped url in a key/value in the annotation field (else otherwise it's own specific key/value in the payload).
There are loads of use cases for this: from search/discovery through to reducing latency for twitter clients that want to show the original url to the user (now potentially a two-stage task if url is <original> -> bit.ly -> t.co) B On Jun 9, 12:13 pm, Jim Gilliam <j...@gilliam.com> wrote: > I'm creating a new thread for this because a few others have mentioned it, > and we haven't gotten a response yet. My hunch is that changing those APIs > involve other teams within Twitter, so figuring out a solution could be > challenging. > > Here is the issue. We need to be able to get matches on the original URL > through the streaming and search APIs. For me, I'm tracking "act" so I can > match tweets that link to 'http://act.ly'. This is not a link shortener > service, the actual pages live at act.ly, and it was all designed > specifically for Twitter so there would be no need for url shorteners. > > As far as I'm concerned, it's fine if that link changes to t.co, as long as > I can still get matches on act.ly (or act) through the streaming API (the > search API is going to be important for people too, but less of an issue for > me personally). > > The most elegant way to fix this would be to allow tracking of the original > URL. So I can put in a domain name, or URL substring, and match everything > that way. Same with search. This would be useful to a lot of people, and > virtually all link oriented web apps with APIs provide a way to get all the > matches for a particular domain. (digg, google, yahoo, etc) > > I'm sure there are other workaround ways of doing this, and I'm all ears. > It would be SUPER NICE (wink wink) to hear some kind of assurance that > there will be a way for us to query this type of information before > the t.cochanges go live. > > Thanks guys... > > Jim Gilliamhttp://act.ly/http://twitter.com/jgilliam > > > > On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 4:43 PM, Jim Gilliam <j...@gilliam.com> wrote: > > Will we be able to get matches on the original URL through the streaming > > API? > > > For example, I'm tracking "act" so I can match tweets that link to ' > >http://act.ly'. Will I still be able to do that? > > > Jim Gilliam > >http://act.ly/ > >http://twitter.com/jgilliam > > > On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Dewald Pretorius <dpr...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> Raffi, > > >> I'm fine with everything up to the new 140 character count. > > >> If you count the characters *after* link wrapping, you are seriously > >> going to mess up my system. My short URLs are currently 18 characters > >> long, and they will be 18 long for quite some time to come. After that > >> they will be 19 for a very long time to come. > > >> If you implement this change, a ton, and I mean a *huge* number of my > >> system's updates are going to be rejected for being over 140 > >> characters. > > >> On Jun 8, 7:57 pm, Raffi Krikorian <ra...@twitter.com> wrote: > >> > hi all. > > >> > twitter has been wrapping links in e-mailed DMs for a couple months > >> > now<http://bit.ly/twttldmemail>. > >> > with that feature, we're trying to protect users against phishing and > >> other > >> > malicious attacks. the way that we're doing this is that any URL that > >> comes > >> > through in a DM gets currently wrapped with a twt.tl URL -- if the URL > >> turns > >> > out to be malicious, Twitter can simply shut it down, and whoever > >> follows > >> > that link will be presented with a page that warns them of potentially > >> > malicious content. in a few weeks, we're going to start slowly enabling > >> this > >> > throughout the API for all statuses as well, but instead of twt.tl, we > >> will > >> > be using t.co. > > >> > practically, any tweet that is sent through statuses/update that has a > >> link > >> > on it will have the link automatically converted to a t.co link on its > >> way > >> > through the Twitter platform. if you fetch any tweet created after this > >> > change goes live, then its text field will have all its links > >> automatically > >> > wrapped with t.co links. when a user clicks on that link, Twitter will > >> > redirect them to the original URL after first confirming with our > >> database > >> > that that URL is not malicious. on top of the end-user benefit, we hope > >> to > >> > eventually provide all developers with aggregate usage data around your > >> > applications such as the number of clicks people make on URLs you > >> display > >> > (it will, of course, be in aggregate and not identifiable manner). > >> > additionally, we want to be able to build services and APIs that can > >> make > >> > algorithmic recommendations to users based on the content they are > >> > consuming. gathering the data from t.co will help make these possible. > > >> > our current plan is that no user will see a t.co URL on twitter.com but > >> we > >> > still have some details to work through. the links will still be > >> displayed > >> > as they were sent in, but the target of the link will be the t.co link > >> > instead. and, we want to provide the same ability to display original > >> links > >> > to developers. we're going to use the entities attribute to make this > >> > possible. > > >> > let's say i send out the following tweet: "you have to check outhttp:// > >> dev.twitter.com!" > > >> > a returned (and truncated) status object may look like: > > >> > { > >> > "text" : "you have to check outhttp://t.co/s9gfk2d4!";, > >> > ... > >> > "user" : { > >> > "screen_name" : "raffi", > >> > ... > >> > }, > >> > ... > >> > "entities" : { > >> > "urls" : [ > >> > { > >> > "url" : "http://t.co/s9gfk2d4";, > >> > "display_url" : "http://dev.twitter.com";, > >> > "indices" : [23, 43] > >> > } > >> > ], > >> > ... > >> > }, > >> > ... > > >> > } > > >> > two things to note: the text of the returned status object doesn't have > >> the > >> > original URL and instead it has a t.co URL, and the entities block now > >> has a > >> > display_url attribute associated with it. what we're hoping is that with > >> > this data, it should be relatively easy to create a UI where you replace > >> thehttp://t.co/s9gfk2d4inthe text with the equivalent of > > >> > <a href="http://t.co/s9gfk2d4";>http://dev.twitter.com</a> > > >> > this means the user would not see the t.co link, but we all can still > >> > provide the protection and gather data from the wrapped link. for the > >> > applications that don't choose to update, the t.co link will be shown > >> (and > >> > the goal to protect users will be met). i just want to emphasize -- we > >> > really do hope that you all render the original URL, but please send the > >> > user through the t.co link. if you do choose to prefetch all the URLs > >> on a > >> > timeline, then, when a user actually clicks on one of the links, please > >> > still send him or her through t.co. We will be updating the TOS to > >> require > >> > you to check t.co and register the click. > > >> > related to this: the way the Twitter API counts characters is going to > >> > change ever so slightly. our 140 characters is now going to be defined > >> as > >> > 140 characters after link wrapping. t.co links are of a predictable > >> length > >> > -- they will always be 20 characters. after we make this live, it will > >> be > >> > feasible to send in the text for a status that is greater than 140 > >> > characters. the rule is after the link wrapping, the text transforms to > >> 140 > >> > characters or fewer. we'll be using the same logic that is in > >> > twitter-text-rb to figure out what is a URL. > > >> > look for an update to dev.twitter.com where we'll have a best practices > >> > document on how to use these t.co links. > > >> > what's the timeline? "soon" we'll enable this on @twitterapi, @rsarver, > >> > @raffi, and a few other test accounts so you all have live data to play > >> > with. on the timescale of weeks (to potentially a month or two), we'll > >> roll > >> > this out to everybody. > > >> > of course, if there are any questions, just feel free to direct them to > >> > @twitterapi! > > >> > -- > >> > Raffi Krikorian > >> > Twitter Platform Teamhttp://twitter.com/raffi
