Hey, looks like it will finally be possible to send pictures in DMs from 3rd party clients... can someone please confirm?
New APIs to power customer engagement in Direct Messages
21–30 of 75 posts
Re: New APIs to power customer engagement in Direct Messages
#22Until they increase their API rate limits, this change is next to useless.
We increased the rate limits for a range of the API endpoints in the fall last year, in fact. The updates we announced today should also offer more and better data to developers as they scale.
Re: New APIs to power customer engagement in Direct Messages
#23A big history lesson and a big WARNING for anyone who is thinking of building anything with Twitter's APIs. Once this company, long ago, encouraged developers to use their APIs to build products and utilities.
Developers heeded the call and flocked to the company's APIs. They built new clients and innovative solutions to make Twitter truly useful. Twitter grew fast with the developer's help and the developer's themselves did well. Many raised millions of dollars in VC funding to make vibrant companies around the Twitter ecosystem. Things were going well.
Then Twitter became greedy. Twitter decided to destroy the very companies that grew Twitter's user base. They changed their TOS monthly outlawing various product categories. They banned clients. They put restrictive quotas on their APIs to starve out companies so they could reap their revenue for themselves. Hundreds of products fell. Millions of developer hours were lost. The Twitter ecosystem shrank and so did Twitter's user growth.
So if you're thinking about building anything with this company then be warned. If anything you've built is remotely popular, then it is only a matter of time before they come to pillage whatever you've built.
Re: New APIs to power customer engagement in Direct Messages
#24Who really trusts Twitter at this point for anything developer related? Not just talking about their API. Twitter never knew what they were doing, and that used to be fine, but the difference now is people finally figured out that Twitter doesn't know what they're doing. They keep releasing all these new features that are all over the place (AND worse than before). They should really stop, step back, and think about…
Thanks for the feedback. Can you be specific about the API features that you're referring to that are "all over the place"? I'm personally really excited about this, and this is probably the most cohesive a strategy I've seen for the API platform. We're very focused on fundamentals right now.
From reading his comment it seems like his primary concern is the issue of trust. He goes on, "Not just talking about their API...". So I think the features he is referring to are user facing features, not API features.
Re: New APIs to power customer engagement in Direct Messages
#25>These APIs are designed to help businesses use the entire Twitter platform
If the only focus is on "customer experiences", why would I want to use this network as a regular user? I don't want endless brands and marketing.
Re: New APIs to power customer engagement in Direct Messages
#26They're aiming for the young or the forgetful developer, I assume? Twitter shutting down the APIs a few years ago wasn't generally considered the best way to get commitment from application developers.
"shutting down the APIs" - you mean, requiring authentication and adding rate-limiting? which meant that we could get on top of the fail whale and control platform stability? The APIs have been open and usable all the time.
Imposing a token limit on APIs with no recourse to lift it is effectively the same as shutting them down.
Re: New APIs to power customer engagement in Direct Messages
#27Who really trusts Twitter at this point for anything developer related? Not just talking about their API. Twitter never knew what they were doing, and that used to be fine, but the difference now is people finally figured out that Twitter doesn't know what they're doing. They keep releasing all these new features that are all over the place (AND worse than before). They should really stop, step back, and think about…
Thanks for the feedback. Can you be specific about the API features that you're referring to that are "all over the place"? I'm personally really excited about this, and this is probably the most cohesive a strategy I've seen for the API platform. We're very focused on fundamentals right now.
One really obvious one: Polls.
Polls were introduced in October 2015. There is still no public API to create them, view them, or vote in them -- for users using third-party clients, polls are simply invisible.
Re: New APIs to power customer engagement in Direct Messages
#28A big history lesson and a big WARNING for anyone who is thinking of building anything with Twitter's APIs. Once this company, long ago, encouraged developers to use their APIs to build products and utilities. Developers heeded the call and flocked to the company's APIs. They built new clients and innovative solutions to make Twitter truly useful. Twitter grew fast with the developer's help and the developer's themse…
Many things that make Twitter special were invented by the developers you mention:
http://furbo.org/2011/03/11/twitterrific-firsts/
> First use of “tweet” to describe an update
> First use of a bird icon.
> First to support replies and conversations (in collaboration with Twitter engineering.)
I think that's why this discussion thread is so negative, Twitter benefited immensely from the work of third party developers and then told them to go pound sand.
Re: New APIs to power customer engagement in Direct Messages
#29Who really trusts Twitter at this point for anything developer related? Not just talking about their API. Twitter never knew what they were doing, and that used to be fine, but the difference now is people finally figured out that Twitter doesn't know what they're doing. They keep releasing all these new features that are all over the place (AND worse than before). They should really stop, step back, and think about…
Thanks for the feedback. Can you be specific about the API features that you're referring to that are "all over the place"? I'm personally really excited about this, and this is probably the most cohesive a strategy I've seen for the API platform. We're very focused on fundamentals right now.
Andy - do you have any more information on this:
"A plan to replace the public statuses/filter, statuses/sample, and search/tweets endpoints with a streamlined API that provides increased access when rate limits are reached."
Some kind of pay-as-you-play model? Appreciate any help - building a product to help smaller businesses leverage the power of Twitter and would like to see how, in return, can help Twitter.
Re: New APIs to power customer engagement in Direct Messages
#30As someone who uses Twitter's APIs heavily, this is both encouraging, and slightly terrifying. We draw down a lot of data from Twitter. Obviously, we always want more data, so we got in contact with GNIP to see what we could afford (which, in itself took a long time). As it turns out its incredibly expensive, and as a very early startup, we couldn't afford any of their plans. We had no option but to fall back to thei…
Well said, both Gnip and datasift costs are way too much for the startup companies.
And the funny thing about datasift is you can not sign up for the monthly plan and they charge you annually which starts from $60,000 for their basic plan.