Adam Green
Twitter API Consultant
adam@140dev.com
781-879-2960
@140dev
Twitter API Programming Tips, Tutorials, Source Code Libraries and Consulting
The Twitter streaming API will deliver tweets for any keywords in real-time. Learn how to cache the results in a database and display them online.
One of my primary goals for this codebase has always been pedagogical. I thought of it as a set of training wheels for the streaming API. The number of moving parts is so great with the streaming API that getting data flowing from the API to a database using just the official docs is a […]
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I’ve been getting emails from people asking for advice on making the switch to the 0.30 version of this code. First of all, there is only one database change that you must make before running the new code. You have to add a new is_rt (tinyint) field to the tweets table to flag retweets. This […]
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Update: This code has now been put into production. You can get the latest copy here. The last few upgrades of this code were purely for compatibility with internal changes in the streaming API, so I wanted to give people code that didn’t require any changes to their own programming. Those upgrades seem to have […]
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Twitter is upgrading the streaming API on January, 6th to require http 1.1 connections. This will break the Phirehose library that manages the API connection in my 140dev streaming API framework. If you’re running this framework code, it’s essential that you replace your copy of Phirehose in the next week or tweet collection will stop. […]
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I’m not the author of the Phirehose library for streaming API connections. I just use it as the network layer of my streaming API code. I don’t have the network coding skills to write this library’s code or to fix it, but I can encourage anyone using Phirehose or my 140dev Twitter framework code to […]
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When I built the 140dev framework 3 years ago, my goal was to provide a set of training wheels. Coders who were new to the API could get a complete working system in miniature. My emphasis was on simplicity, certainly not production level functionality. Since the Twitter IPO and the $200M acquisition of Topsy, collecting […]
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Twitter has announced that they will be turning off basic authentication for the Streaming API on May 7th. I’m preparing a new version of the 140dev Framework to use OAuth now, and will have it posted tomorrow. That will be good for new users of this code, but if you already have the code in […]
This week we got crushed by the State of the Union speech. We normally get about 30,000 to 50,000 tweets per day in the 2012twit.com database, and our largest server can handle that without any showing any appreciable load. During the SOTU tweet volume exploded. We got 500,000 tweets in about 4 hours. I was […]
The 2012 candidate system is going to need a more fault tolerant collection system. Since the Egyptian protest started Twitter has been even more unreliable, and this is affecting the connection to the streaming API. I use a monitoring system to warn me when tweet collection has stopped, but it hasn’t been necessary in the […]
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 […]
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* […]
The first day has gone well. I announced the code on the Twitter dev list, and got 16 visitors to the site. The good thing is that the average pages per visitor was 7, and they spent an average of 11 minutes on the site. So people who get to the code are giving it […]
Make a smooth transition to API 1.1
with Adam Green’s first book on
Twitter API programming
Adam Green has been building custom Twitter applications for 5 years. Thousands of people have used his open source libraries, ebooks, and tutorials to build their own websites and online tools based on the Twitter API.
Now Green has harnessed his years of coding experience to present the secret formula for successful Twitter Engagement programming.
Collect. Identify. Engage.
Collect a complete engagement profile for the most influential accounts for any area of interest. These tweets, mentions, friends, and followers will be stored in a MySQL database on your own server.
Identify the users you need to interact with, including the most mentioned tweets and tags. The reporting system included as source code can easily be enhanced to select exactly the type of users you need to help spread your message.
Engage with these key accounts using automated tweets and DMs. Follow new accounts that have been selected based on your specific needs, and track these accounts to know when they follow back.
All of the PHP source code for this book is available as open source under the MIT license.
Free Javascript Ebook
Free Twitter OAuth Ebook
“When I started investigating on how to build my Twitter based Site the Twitter API made my head spin. Sure it was powerful but where do I even begin? Then I found the 140dev Streaming API Framework and it made Twitter development a LOT easier! Without it I would probably spend hundreds of hours just on standard functions such as connecting to the Twitter API, managing data and displaying results. Thanks 140DEV for such a cool tool!"
- Paul Valkama, http://StreamClock.com
“The most important part of any technology effort is the nature of the people you work with. The people at 140dev are world class best. They have years of experience, a deep knowledge of Internet technologies, extensive familiarity of the Twitter API and a proven ability to deliver. They also work great with others. Frankly they have been so incredible I am amazed and really hope we can continue the relationship for a decade."
- Bob Gourley, http://twitchimp.com
“We worked with Adam and the 140dev team to build a Twitter business focusing on healthcare companies. 140dev brought unparalleled knowledge of Twitter mechanics, but also an excellent understanding of how Twitter fits into business strategy. They proved to be ideal development partners: committed to reaching our project’s goals, generous with sharing their knowledge, and dedicated to delivering beyond our expectations, despite working across continents and time zones. We now see them as an extended part of our business and hope to work with them in many future projects."