As Taylor said, the Streaming API sounds like it would be a good option for you to consider but for a user driven search like yours you would probably need to build a caching layer.
Whilst the near operator works well on the search.twitter.com website it isn't supported through the search API. Unfortunately this means you won't be able to use that operator in the way you hope to. I am interested in the blank results you get though and wondered if you would be happy to answer a couple of questions for me: * Do you ever see an error or warning in the response? * Are you using since_id? * Can you give an example of just one of your queries? Thanks Matt On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 2:59 PM, ELB <ebrit...@gmail.com> wrote: > thanks Taylor for the reply. > > I am referring to user-initiated queries. > > We have users that type in a keyword to a search box, and we then > return results from the Search API with the corresponding Geo > Coordinates included with the request > > > > On Jun 2, 5:51 pm, Taylor Singletary <taylorsinglet...@twitter.com> > wrote: > > Have you considered using the Streaming API for this purpose? > http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Streaming-API-Documentation#locations-- we > > encourage those with heavy search needs to use it as an alternative. > Search > > is meant much more for servicing search results based off of > user-initiated > > queries, and is most tuned for that purpose. > > > > Taylor > > > > On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 2:37 PM, ELB <ebrit...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hello, > > > > > We are looking at getting city based search results for 14 major > > > cities. > > > > > The current method we use is to plug in a cities Geo Coordinates into > > > the search API and then include a 25KM radius around the city. This > > > works well and allows us to get true results of people inside or > > > around a given city. > > > However, for maybe a 20 minute period once or twice per day, the > > > results are empty. We go from 50-100+ results for a given keyword to > > > 0 - 5 results. Then, 20 minutes later there will again be 50 - 100+ > > > results including several results for the time period whereby the > > > results were blank. So, its not a case of Twitter not having results, > > > it is a case of a 10 - 20 minute window whereby Twitter's results with > > > the GEO filter don't show up - or barely show up for a given time > > > period. > > > > > This has led us to consider using the Near API. From what I > > > understand, the Near API will give us results near a given city based > > > off of GEO data as well as profile data. I would assume this may be a > > > more stable option - but the option we use now is great except for > > > those rare instances whereby Twitter shows us little to no results for > > > a keyword they clearly have a lot of results for within our GEO > > > coordinates. > > > > > ELB > -- Matt Harris Developer Advocate, Twitter http://twitter.com/themattharris
