One thing I learned early on in building tweet aggregation sites for clients is that they expect to only see tweets in English. After all, Google can do it, why can’t I? In theory there is a lang=en argument in the search API, but it doesn’t help much, because it only uses the language setting […]
Search: search api
I have a bad habit acquired from my years as a Dot Com CTO. When the time comes to pick a server for a new project, I always overbuy. I’d rather pay a hundred dollars more per month then have a server that can’t take the load. One of the driving forces behind this decision […]
We recently built a cool site called This R That for a client. Besides having a great UI that my son, Zach, built, it also has a neat architecture for a Twitter search site. The major weakness of the Twitter search API is that rate limiting is based on the IP making the request. While […]
I’ve built a tweet aggregation database for the 2012 election, and I’m using the streaming API to collect all tweets for the possible candidates. I want to go a lot further than just collecting their tweets, though. I think there will be all kinds of fascinating data to mine from the way these Twitter accounts […]
Since the announcement of the Twitter-Gnip partnership, there have been lots of news stories and blog posts stating that this is the end of the independent developer, because there is no more free Twitter data. This is completely wrong. You can get all the Twitter data you need, as long as you don’t want *all* […]
Twitter bought the code for the search API when they acquired Summize, and while it did give them a fast search, I get the feeling they aren’t too happy about the quality of the code. The biggest hint is that they never fix it. The best example is the documented bug about the search API […]
One of the oddest behaviors on Twitter is spammers who think they can persuade people by blasting the same message over and over again through multiple accounts. Yesterday I looked at the Twitter search results for the phrase “twitter api”. I found hundreds of copies of these two tweets from dozens of accounts: The Twitter […]
streaming_framework Most of the work of receiving tweets from the Twitter streaming API is done by the Phirehose library, which is installed with the 140dev Twitter framework. Phirehose is a separate open source project from the 140dev framework, and you can find its home here. Fenn Bailey, the author of Phirehose, was nice enough to […]
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 […]
In many ways Twitter-based marketing is like a pyramid scheme. While sending tweets to your own followers is one way of broadcasting a message, it is more effective to have others repeat your message either through literal retweets or more subtle gestures, such as replies and repeating the URLs that you tweet. If someone on […]
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 […]
As part of upgrading the 140dev.com site for API 1.1, this page has replaced the old posting on this subject. My attitude towards the search API has changed since the early days when Twitter bought it from Summize. I had real doubts back then as to Twitter’s ability and inclination to integrate the search API […]
