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

Overcoming 502 errrors while backfilling tweets

February 4, 2011

I’m collecting all the tweets for possible 2012 candidates with the Streaming API, and I wanted to make sure I was getting every one of their tweets. I built a backfilling script to go through every tweet in each of these accounts, and add any that weren’t already in the database. This uses the /statuses/user_timeline […]

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Twitter Politics: Collecting tweets for potential 2012 candidates

December 28, 2010

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 […]

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Twitter Politics: Who gets to regulate Twitter?

December 9, 2010

Two groups on Twitter that have been ignoring each other are about to collide, and it won’t be pretty when they do. Politicians from world Presidents to American Congressmen have embraced Twitter over the last year, and now hacktivists are using Twitter to manage and promote the Wikileaks cyberwar. They are operating side by side, […]

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Danny Sullivan on the SEO value of tweets

December 4, 2010

Danny Sullivan was one of the first SEOs. He is so well connected to the world of search that Google actually answers his questions about “the algorithm”! So when Danny makes a statement about Twitter and SEO I pay attention. His latest article about Twitter’s effect on SEO makes fascinating reading. I’ll summarize some of […]

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Natural selection as a Twitter product strategy

December 4, 2010

I’m a devoted Darwinian when it comes to biological and cultural evolution, so it is appropriate for me to view natural selection as the best product development strategy for Twitter as well. Twitter’s strength has been that it did less not more. Sure, it started with a simplistic friends and followers social graph, but that […]

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Twitter Consultant Tip: Get all the Twitter data you need for free

December 3, 2010

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* […]

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This is what Twitter is

December 3, 2010

I’m saving this tweet from Russian President Medvedev so I can point to it the next time I read an article pontificating on what Twitter should become. Twitter doesn’t have to become anything, it already is. Twitter is a tool that lets the President of Russia cut through any filters and communicate with anyone he […]

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Praying to @Twitterapi

December 2, 2010

The way people mention @Twitterapi in their tweets is really fascinating. The @Twitterapi account is meant for developers to receive updates on bugs and code changes at Twitter, and to redirect developer questions to the right resource. Yet a lot of the tweets that mention @Twitterapi are from regular users who have heard that @Twitterapi […]

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OK, Twitter. This time you have to fix the Search API

November 30, 2010

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 […]

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Which is sillier, Twitter or MSM’s reaction to Twitter?

November 27, 2010

Twitter is just a bunch of silly rumors and nonsense stories repeated endlessly. No, wait, that is just the articles coming out from the mainstream media about the latest pronouncements from Twitter execs. I can’t tell if Biz Stone and Dick Costolo are playing prank the media, but that certainly is the effect. The press […]

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Twitter developers vs. Twitter consultants

November 26, 2010

It may be my age, but I’m confused when I read that Twitter is somehow evil by acting competitively towards their developers, or that there is no future in being a Twitter developer. I think what they mean is that Twitter is becoming increasingly competitive with developers who try to replace Twitter.com. But isn’t that […]

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Is Twitter terrorism next?

November 26, 2010

Here’s a scary idea. Someone got control of the Twitter account of the disaster management adviser to the President of Indonesia, and tweeted a Tsunami warning. This is being reported as an account hacking, but it could easily be the result of a rogue Twitter app. Right now applications can be set up with read […]

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