api

How I got burned by Twitter's API, why it matters, and how to fix it

Last week I discovered I was using Twitter too much. After an hour online with Twhirl, I got this message in the app: "Limit exceeded, paused 5 min." The error condition cleared up shortly, but the next morning, after just a few minutes, it came back and did not resolve. I had to go back to accessing Twitter via the Twitter.com site, where I still had access.

I had been bitten by a deficiency in Twitter's API (application programming interface), which allows alternate interfaces like Twhirl to work at all. The problem, it turns out, is temporarily fixable for end users, but Twitter is going to need to recode its API if it wants to make the Twitter platform for third-party apps and services more robust. And other Web 2.0 architects would do well to study this issue so they don't fall into the same hole.

I was schooled on the ins and outs of the Twitter API in part by my followers on Twitter, but also by Oren Michels, CEO of Mashery, a company that offers API services to Web 2.0 companies. Here's the lowdown:

The Twitter service limits the number of updates a user can get from it to 70 per hour. There's no limit if you're using Twitter.com, but if you want to use Twhirl or Friendfeed or Flock to read your Twitter account, the Twitter service keeps track of how many requests you're sending it and cuts you off if you exceed the limit.

The problem is that all the Twitter apps you use count to your total. It's cumulative. Once an app, or more importantly, a Web service, has your Twitter log-in credentials, it can keep requesting Twitter updates on your behalf even you aren't using the service anymore. And that's what happened to me: I use Twhirl heavily, but not that heavily. It's the other dozen or so services I've signed up to over the past few months that were pinging Twitter for me and using up my allotment of updates.

There's a temporary fix for people in my boat, and it's very simple: Change your Twitter password. That will cause all the previously-configured connections to Twitter to break, and they'll stop using up your API calls. Just reconfigure the apps you do want to use with your new password and you're back in business. Thanks to my Twitter friend Scott Mahan for this tip. But this is a hack, and an inelegant one.

Photobucket shares interface, matches Flickr

Photobucket, is making a significant change aimed to weave the widely used photo-sharing site more tightly into the Web 2.0 fabric.

The company is releasing an application programming interface (API) for its site, said Chief Executive Alex Welch. That means that ordinary developers will be able to build more sophisticated services around the Photobucket services and content.

Photobucket already made its API available to commercial partners, but now ordinary coders will be able to get access by signing up on the Web site, Welch said. The company is announcing the news in conjunction with the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. … Read more

OpenSocial apps now available to Orkut users in India

And now, the latest in social network developer platform announcements: Orkut, the community site owned by Google, has rolled out a directory of applications to its users in India and will continue to expand geographically over the next few weeks.

India, along with Brazil, is one of Orkut's main hubs of popularity; in Brazil, it faces many of the same issues that massive social networks like Facebook and MySpace do in the U.S. Despite having been developer in-house in Google's Mountain View, Calif.-based headquarters, the site has never really taken off stateside. Meanwhile, rival MySpace is currently launching an India-centric portal … Read more

Google, lock-in, and evil

The last week of news surrounding Google doesn't paint a picture of a lovey-dovey company that just wants to help you search. The backdrop for all of the news is the emergence of "cloud platforms" upon which developers can build. It used to be that developers would write for Windows or Linux: Now they're writing applications to run in the cloud of their choice (Google, Bungee Labs, Salesforce, or open-source Coghead)

The problem with this approach, as Tim O'Reilly points out with reference to Google, is it paves the way to lock-in that the "offline" world could only dream of inflicting:

I've been warning for some time that the first phase of Web 2.0 is the acquisition of critical mass via network effects, but that once companies achieve that critical mass, they will be tempted to consolidate their position, leading ultimately to a replay of the personal computer industry's sad decline from an open, energetic marketplace to a controlled economy.

Enter Google's soft disavowal of its "Don't do evil" motto. As Techcrunch suggests, Google likely doesn't like being held to this (somewhat subjective) standard anymore, now that not doing evil becomes ever more difficult at its size and scale.

So what is Google to do? How can Google preserve the impressive heft of its momentum without strangling its potential supporters?… Read more

FriendFeed gets its AIR application, Alert Thingy

AlertThingy, the first (I believe) AIR application for FriendFeed, is now out. If you're a FriendFeed user just go and install it. It's probably what you've been waiting for: A desktop application that funnels all the things your friends are doing that make it into FriendFeed to your desktop. You can also post comments back to FriendFeed (and the sites FriendFeed then posts to) with the application.

Most of the content I see in my FriendFeed account comes from Twitter, but I don't find the application to be as clear or well-sorted as Twhirl, everyone's … Read more

What does your TweetCloud say about you?

This morning, it seems like everyone on my Twitter contacts list is talking about TweetClouds. It's an application that uses the microblogging service's API to create a "cloud" of the most frequently used words used in a given Twitter member's feed of "tweets."

It only works with Twitter accounts that are publicly accessible--some members keep their updates friends-only--and it takes a while for the app to munch through all the "tweets" and form a cloud. And like many small Twitter applications that get unexpected viral buzz, the server sometimes crashes. But … Read more

FriendFeed's goal: More than just a feed aggregator

FriendFeed is a current Web 2.0 darling. The service performs the increasingly valuable job of presenting, in one place, all the online activity of the friends you want to follow. Twitter posts, blog entries, YouTube favorites, Last.fm listens, Flickr photos, you name it...FriendFeed lets you track it all (except Facebook updates). You can also talk about your friends' activities on FriendFeed itself, a clubbier environment than joining the fray on, say, a YouTube feedback page.

The service is not the only social aggregator, nor is it the first: Plaxo Pulse does a lot of the same stuff, … Read more

Welcome to the club: FriendFeed launches its API

I think we all saw this one coming. The hottest social aggregator out there today, FriendFeed, has launched an application programming interface, paving the way for third-party applications using its service. Full documentation for the API is available on Google Code.

This is certainly an important step for FriendFeed. The closely related service, Twitter, has benefited greatly from providing support for third-party developers, so FriendFeed should see a similar bump from the introduction of its API.

FriendFeed's API currently offers PHP and Python libraries, with support for OAuth apparently on the way. In making the API, FriendFeed also took … Read more

YouTube's expanded API not for everybody

UPDATE 3-15-08 12:20 p.m.: Some of the information in the story is found in YouTube's Frequently Asked Questions section

Before you start building new applications around YouTube's video player, it might be wise to check out the Terms of Service agreement and the Frequently Asked Questions section.

It has a lot to say about what you can or can't do--particularly when it comes to any thoughts of making money. First up, the No.1 video-sharing site says plainly "the intent of the API is for noncommercial use. "More specifically, the TOS prohibits using … Read more

YouTube, once just a destination, becoming a service too

Updated at 7:33 AM PDT to include YouTube-TiVo news.

Google's YouTube just announced that it is expanding its APIs to allow more direct access to the service.

The updates to the APIs, or application programming interfaces, give developers deeper access into YouTube for video uploading and allow for "chromeless" players, or players without the traditional YouTube interface and branding.

This move means YouTube will become not just a destination for videos, but a system that serves videos into other apps. Clearly, it's an effort to turn YouTube into an infrastructure play that, once adopted by … Read more