THE
API
Presented to Adobe Systems
February 10, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

@al3x
@mzsanford
THE API TEAM
Plus developer support, soon.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

A BRIEF HISTORY
i. The incidental API.
ii. Documentation begets growth.
iii. The addition of search.
iv. The intentional API.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

FACTS
• 3,500+
developers in our discussion and
announcement groups.
• 2,400+ registered applications.
• Way, way more apps out there.
• Japanese language book release last year.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

OUT NEXT
MONTH
Rough Cut available now.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

OUT NEXT
MONTH
Rough Cut available now.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

A TOUR
OF TWITTER’S CURRENT API
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

TWITTER API OFFERINGS
REST API
Search API
Data Mining Feed
Firehose
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

REST API
• 36 methods mirroring nearly all of Twitter’s user-facing
features.
• Returns XML or JSON for all methods, RSS and Atom
for methods that return timelines.
• Supports JSON callbacks, a variety of parameters to
slice ‘n dice.
• Meaningful use of HTTP response codes, plus
explanatory error messages in the requested format.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

TRY THIS RIGHT NOW
curl http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/dom.xml
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

SEARCH API
two methods: search and trends.
• Just
• Parameters to create advanced searches: location, language,
tweets to/about/from specific users, more.
• Retrieve trends, find out what’s hot on Twitter
programmatically.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

TRY THIS RIGHT NOW
curl http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q=adobe
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

DATA MINING FEED
•A service for researchers and hobbyists.
• Returns 600 recent public tweets every sixty seconds.
•A statistically significant sampling of Twitter’s traffic.
• Being used right now for PhD research!
• Completely free.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

COMING SOON
PROJECTS IN THE WORKS
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

THE FIREHOSE
•A way to move the stream of
all public tweets from our
servers to our partners.
• Previously XMPP, now HTTP.
• Private beta starting soon.
• No cost, just some paperwork.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

OAUTH
•A standard for token-based authentication.
• Defeating the password anti-pattern.
• Code is live for our internal testing today.
• Rails walkthrough on the API Wiki right now.
• Private beta starts ASAP.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

COMMUNITY
• Primary goal: a better way to promote apps.
• Organize and recommend apps to users.
• Pull developer resources into one place.
• When: Q2, if not sooner.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

TWITTER API 2.0
• Unifies Search API and REST API.
• More RESTful: intuitive & consistent URLs and parameters.
• Versioning: http://api.twitter.com/1/method.xml
• New backend: better response time, less rate limiting.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

FEEDBACK
FROM OUR DEVELOPERS TO YOURS
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

“A generic R
/
ac.com EST librar y o
erfl.kay
f some
nd
ttp://wo sor t would b
h
e good.”
to URLLoader with a
“Synchronous calls
uld be a great solution.”
timeout wo
“Show AIR JavaScript
developer s some love!”
in pain!”
ssdoma
“Cro
“Flex needs better
es are documentation.”
r y issu
“Memo e from
ging m
iscoura
d
g AIR.”
usin updater s, bloat, cost.”
“Installer s,
“Foster community participation.”
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

THANKS!
QUESTIONS?
More information about the Twitter API at
http://apiwiki.twitter.com/
Tuesday, February 10, 2009