It might also be useful to have a "Reverse Table of Contents" which lists the bits of information you can get from the API, and then lists below each item the actual API calls that provide such information (and maybe a note about authentication after each). In my experience, I am always searching the API asking "what method do I need to call to find out <insert data I want here>?" There's no straight-forward way to answer that except for reading all of the documentation for the methods and ultimately deciding which one to use. I think what may be happening is that people (devs) are doing this searching and just stopping after the first method they find (which could require authentication, leading the dev to believe you must have user login creds to access said info).
For pure data extraction, I find the Search API to be very powerful (save protected accounts), and only use the Twitter API to take actions (tweet, dm, follow, etc). Perhaps the Search API should be promoted a bit more? $0.02, -Chad On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 1:09 PM, Nicole Simon <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> Definitely happy to make it more clear which methods require >> authentication and which do not. However, to get the effect that's >> most intuitive from calling the API methods, calling them as the user >> whose data you're interested in is the most straightforward approach. > > Which is what brought us into this mess (and I am telling you that is not > getting better) I'd rather have the user 'learn' which actions require > the access to my password. > > Which basically should be just two areas: sending tweets / DM > and changing settings. Most apps should not require the password > and like childreen people like Chris Brogan and co will make them > learn that this is all they should share. It is like childreen and fire. > > The viral effect most devs wish for (oh they should tweet about me!) > can be reached without the users login data by encouraging the > users to spread the news. > > See this result from http://twtpoll.com/r/49jw9z as an example of how > it is done in a way that I as a user am happy to spread the news in > comparison to the most often stupid automated messages. > > hth > Nicole > > > -- > Suche Beta-Tester für Experiment: > "Journalisten suchen Blogger" - http://bloxpert.de/ > > Kontakt: > http://twitter.com/NicoleSimon // http://mit140zeichen.de/ > http://crueltobekind.org // http://beissholz.de > > skype: nicole.simon / mailto:[email protected] > phone: +49 451 899 75 03 / mobile: +49 179 499 7076 > > >
