Adam Green
Twitter API Consultant
adam@140dev.com
781-879-2960
@140dev

WordPress architecture is in place

October 15, 2010

I rebuilt the code for the 104dev system using a WP-style architecture. As expected the messiest part was getting the directory paths right. I think the idea of putting most of the functionality into separate plugin directories will be a big win. There will be a very small core of tweet collection code and general […]

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Twitter Consultant Tip: Twitter apps require ongoing maintenance

October 14, 2010

Part of the education process that a Twitter consultant has to do with a new client is explaining that a Twitter app is not the same thing as a typical website. Web pages that are built on the Twitter API have to be monitored constantly, and the code has to be tweaked often. This is […]

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Watch the losers for the next wave

October 14, 2010

It’s easy to see that Web 2.0 is winding down. What isn’t clear is where the next wave will come from. The most likely place to watch for signs of another wave is the people who were displaced by the end of the current one. I’ve seen four technology waves since I got out of […]

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Decisions about the tweet aggregation code

October 13, 2010

I’ve been thinking about how to prepare the tweet aggregation code used for the dev tweets page. I know that I want to add multiple modules to the system, and make it easy to customize the appearance of the tweet list. This sounds a lot like the WordPress model with plugins and themes, so I’m […]

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Twitter API tutorial on using mention frequency to find key influencers

October 10, 2010

I’ve learned that follower count is greatly overrated as measurement of influence and popularity on Twitter. I now use the frequency a user is mentioned in tweets containing specific keywords instead. I’ve written a new tutorial on calculating and apply this idea of mention count to identify influential Twitter users.

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Twitter Consulting Tip: Twitter vocabulary vs. search vocabulary

October 10, 2010

One of the first things I work on with new clients is helping them to learn the vocabulary people use on Twitter. Clients who use the Web for marketing are very aware of the search terms that are most effective for ads and SEO, and they expect the same phrases to be used on Twitter. […]

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New Twitter API tutorial comparing search API and streaming API

October 10, 2010

I just finished a tutorial on the two methods of searching for tweets. Whenever this subject comes up on the Twitter developers mailing list, the usual response is that the streaming API is best, but that depends on your goals and programming ability. If you want to search for tweets in the past, or if […]

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Twitter Consulting Tip: Selling the SEO benefits of tweet aggregation

October 9, 2010

I just finished a tutorial on the proper way to use aggregated tweets for maximum SEO benefits, and I thought I should also write about the way to sell this benefit to clients. While most potential consulting clients recognize the effect Twitter has had on pop culture, they aren’t aware of how they could benefit […]

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Fun with WordPress code and tweet aggregation

October 9, 2010

I had an interesting time getting the Twitter developer tweets onto a WordPress page. I explored lots of different paths: My first attempt was to use a plugin called Exec-PHP. This worked fine as a way of getting the tweet list to appear on a WordPress page, because I have the display code callable by […]

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Twitter Consulting Tip: Mixing Automated and Human Tweets

October 9, 2010

The amount of time it takes to manage an active Twitter account is one of the major hurdles in getting clients to use Twitter effectively. The best approach is to create an automated tweeting system to ensure a steady flow of product and corporate messages, and then supplement these tweets with hand written ones. Automated […]

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Twitter API Tutorial: Twitter Database Cache

October 1, 2010

Along with providing the source code for the Twitter engineering tweet database, I also want to use it as a model for explaining the proper database and code architecture for aggregating tweets. I’ve got my first tutorial up now on the benefits of decoupling your website Twitter app from the Twitter API.

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