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What Happens When A Twitter Client Hits The Token Limit

marco.org

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Re: What Happens When A Twitter Client Hits The Token Limit

#61
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or automating the creation of a unique app token for each user: https://dev.twitter.com/apps What TOS does that violate? What if the user manually creates a token and inputs it? Could Twitter detect this even happening?

I'd say that sudden explosion in one user application is very suspicious. This is easily countered by premoderation of applications, for example.

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Re: What Happens When A Twitter Client Hits The Token Limit

#62
I've watched this from a distance with interest. Developers have a special place within the overall Internet ecosystem. As a non developer, everything Twitter has said and done in the last 12 months or more tells me "We don't need a healthy 3rd party ecosystem and we don't want one. Hobbysits can stay filling odd niche requirements and here's our cap. Everyone else though? Sorry" I have no emotion around this as I'm not a developer. I feel as though many developers can't wrap their mind around this concept of not being wanted. They're used to being very wanted initially and then at best still wanted but with a few controlling parameters around activity (see "all App Store/Developer discussions"). I suspect it might be a slightly over exaggerated sense of self importance that's meant it's taken a long time for the obvious to set in. Perhaps that's why Marco only just connected the dots? (as usual I'm not talking about all developers - I've seen many who got it right from the get go)

Re: What Happens When A Twitter Client Hits The Token Limit

#63
post #34
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you work for Twitter, I'd say you're right, and rightly so. Don't depend on someone else's API, how many times must history repeat itself before this message sinks in.

Don't rely on someone else's API? That's like going through life never trusting anybody. Sure, you'll avoid getting burned, but I hardly think that's an optimal strategy. A better strategy is to trust somebody (/an API) until they give you good reasons not to. Admittedly, twitter seems to have broken that trust. I personally would't use them as a platform, unless the benefits clearly outweigh the risks of them haphaz…

How about "don't build your business on a free service's platform".

Re: What Happens When A Twitter Client Hits The Token Limit

#64

I've watched this from a distance with interest. Developers have a special place within the overall Internet ecosystem. As a non developer, everything Twitter has said and done in the last 12 months or more tells me "We don't need a healthy 3rd party ecosystem and we don't want one. Hobbysits can stay filling odd niche requirements and here's our cap. Everyone else though? Sorry" I have no emotion around this as I'm…

well it's not like twitter benefits from correcting that.

Re: What Happens When A Twitter Client Hits The Token Limit

#65
post #7

*The effective rule, therefore, is even simpler: “Don’t build anything for Twitter.” Exactly, that's precisely the message they wanted you to have. What's wrong with using the twitter.com on Windows8, do we really need a special client just for Windows 8? This is exactly what the web is supposed to do. I don't get anyone is surprised, it's Twitter's ecosystem and if you're duplicating their functionality then it's pe…

> What's wrong with using the twitter.com on Windows8, do we really need a special client just for Windows 8? This is exactly what the web is supposed to do. Native > Web, if you do it right. Web has a lot of UX limitations native apps don't have.

And native has features that web doesn't have. Growl on OS X, for example.

Re: What Happens When A Twitter Client Hits The Token Limit

#66

I've watched this from a distance with interest. Developers have a special place within the overall Internet ecosystem. As a non developer, everything Twitter has said and done in the last 12 months or more tells me "We don't need a healthy 3rd party ecosystem and we don't want one. Hobbysits can stay filling odd niche requirements and here's our cap. Everyone else though? Sorry" I have no emotion around this as I'm…

I think "over exaggerated sense of self importance" is far from the crux of this issue.

Developers are pissed off at Twitter for two main reasons:

1) Developers helped build Twitter as it exists today. With their hard work, sleepless nights and toil, they created the ecosystem that allowed Twitter to grow into the giant they are today. Now that Twitter is big, they are saying thank you by more or less shutting down their API for any serious Twitter integrations.

2) Twitter said, "we'll work with you" regarding API limits, but they didn't mean it. People that built things in good faith are now realizing that Twitter didn't act as such. If you put a lot of effort into building an app that utilizes Twitter's API, you'd be rightly pissed about this too.

I agree that it may have taken a long time for "the obvious" to set in with regards to Twitter not caring about their 3rd party developer ecosystem. Hopefully, as the OP points out, its pretty obvious you'd be a fool to build anything on Twitter anymore.

Re: What Happens When A Twitter Client Hits The Token Limit

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an unreasonable position to take. Almost all third-party software products ever created rely on some other third-party APIs, and to suggest "Don't depend on someone else's API" as a strategy would be akin to saying "Don't write software for a living." The challenge is to determine, in advance, if the platform you are writing for will maintain some reasonable level of access to the API, both now, and in the fut…

Perhaps "don't depend on someone else's API unless you're paying for it" is a better attitude. Depending on someone else to keep giving you something for free is problematic at best.

That's not correct either. There are lots of free APIs that are reliably stable, available, and profitable. Think about how many tens of billions of dollars have been made writing to the win32 API. Likewise, the community of GNU/Linux APIs (Perhaps the first time I've ever felt it was appropriate to write GNU/Linux in a sentence :-) - glibc, etc...

The question you have to ask yourself is how much leverage the third-party has over you if they decided they want to screw you over. Even still, you may want to write for that platform if the $$$ is there. Look at iOS platform - Apple totally owns you. Or, even better, look at the PS3/Wii/XBox platforms - the owners of those APIs have even more control over what you can do - but still very profitable platforms to develop for.

At the end of the day, a judgement call has to be made. No easy rules.

Re: What Happens When A Twitter Client Hits The Token Limit

#68
post #7

*The effective rule, therefore, is even simpler: “Don’t build anything for Twitter.” Exactly, that's precisely the message they wanted you to have. What's wrong with using the twitter.com on Windows8, do we really need a special client just for Windows 8? This is exactly what the web is supposed to do. I don't get anyone is surprised, it's Twitter's ecosystem and if you're duplicating their functionality then it's pe…

There are things clients do much better than the website. Tweetbot, for instance, makes having multiple accounts a LOT easier than logging out and back in. Plus stuff like OS notifications, general OS integration, filtering ("oh god I'm sick of hearing about #obama and #romney, I already voted")… Clients definitely make Twitter more worthwhile for a user. Sadly what makes Twitter more valuable for a user does not nec…

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Re: What Happens When A Twitter Client Hits The Token Limit

#69
I wonder why something like "If you want more than 100k usernames, either pay us $x per username or use our advertisement API and put whatever tweets/ads we push where we tell you to" is not an option.

It would be refreshingly honest and for some people/clients it could work, plus it could earn them some of the needed cash.

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