Twitter Revamping Its API for 3rd-Party Apps
DECbot writes:
Changes are coming to the Twitter API that should encourage new 3rd-party and bot development.
XDA-Developers reports:
As you may know, Twitter's API has caused a lot of friction for 3rd-party app developers. Numerous popular Twitter clients have been pulled from the Play Store in the past due to reaching the controversial 100,000 token limit. Back in 2018, Twitter made changes that removed key features from 3rd-party developers. Those changes went into effect later that year despite a campaign from the developers of popular apps. Some of those key features will finally be made available to developers again with API v2.
Here's Twitter's brief explanation of what's new in API v2:
- A cleaner API that's easier to use, with new developer features like the ability to specify which fields get returned, or retrieve more Tweets from a conversation within the same response.
- Some of the most requested features that were missing from the API, including conversation threading, poll results in Tweets, pinned Tweets on profiles, spam filtering, and a more powerful stream filtering and search query language.
The last bullet point is what fans of 3rd-party Twitter apps should be most excited about. It's pretty crazy to think that a 3rd-party client wasn't allowed to show polls, thread conversations, or show pinned tweets. These are basic features of the social media platform that anyone would expect to see in a Twitter client, and it only harmed the Twitter experience for users who weren't using the official app. We're glad to see Twitter has opened these features up.
The new API will replace the Standard (free), Premium (self-serve paid), and Enterprise tiers with product tracks titled "Standard," "Academic Research," and "Business." Each track will also include Basic, Elevated, or Custom access levels. The new product tracks are meant to remove restrictions and limitations imposed on developers by the older pricing model. Twitter expects the changes will encourage a resurgence of "fun little Twitter tools and bots" within the new Standard track that were harmed by the old pricing model and rate limits.
No pricing is available at this time, but the free Standard track is has already launched while the Business and Academic/Research tracks will arrive "soon." There is a public roadmap posted on Trello for those and developers interested in testing the new features can apply here.
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