Twitter Apps Update - Will your Twitter Tools Break?

by tpw
11 replies
I just received this in my email:

Over the coming weeks, we will be making two important updates that will impact how you interact with Twitter applications. We are sending this notice to all Twitter users to make sure you are aware of these changes.

What are applications?

There are over 250,000 applications built using the Twitter API. To use most applications, you first authorize the application to access your Twitter account, after which you can use it to read and post Tweets, discover new users and more. Applications come in many varieties, including desktop applications like TweetDeck, Seesmic, or EchoFon, websites such as TweetMeme, fflick, or Topsy, or mobile applications such as Twitter for iPhone, Twitter for Blackberry, or Foursquare.

Update 1: New authorization rules for applications

Starting August 31, all applications will be required to use “OAuth” to access your Twitter account.

What's OAuth?

* OAuth is a technology that enables applications to access Twitter on your behalf with your approval without asking you directly for your password.
* Desktop and mobile applications may still ask for your password once, but after that request, they are required to use OAuth in order to access your timeline or allow you to tweet.

What does this mean for me?

* Applications are no longer allowed to store your password.
* If you change your password, the applications will continue to work.
* Some applications you have been using may require you to reauthorize them or may stop functioning at the time of this change.
* All applications you have authorized will be listed at Twitter.
* You can revoke access to any application at any time from the list.

Update 2: t.co URL wrapping

In the coming weeks, we will be expanding the roll-out of our link wrapping service t.co, which wraps links in Tweets with a new, simplified link. Wrapped links are displayed in a way that is easier to read, with the actual domain and part of the URL showing, so that you know what you are clicking on. When you click on a wrapped link, your request will pass through the Twitter service to check if the destination site is known to contain malware, and we then will forward you on to the destination URL. All of that should happen in an instant.

You will start seeing these links on certain accounts that have opted-in to the service; we expect to roll this out to all users by the end of the year. When this happens, all links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL.

What does this mean for me?

* A really long link such as Amazon.com: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose (9780446563048): Tony Hsieh: Books might be wrapped as Amazon.com: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose (9780446563048): Tony Hsieh: Books for display on SMS, but it could be displayed to web or application users as amazon.com/Delivering- or as the whole URL or page title.
* You will start seeing links in a way that removes the obscurity of shortened links and lets you know where each link will take you.
* When you click on these links from Twitter.com or a Twitter application, Twitter will log that click. We hope to use this data to provide better and more relevant content to you over time.

Thanks for reading this important update. Come and check what's new at Twitter.

Thanks,
The Twitter Team
In case you missed it, many Twitter updates break some of the apps for Twitter...

This should not be an update that breaks too many things, but any app programmer not using OAuth will certainly break... although programmers have known this change has been coming for nearly a year...
#apps #break #tools #twitter #update
  • Profile picture of the author thebitbotdotcom
    Unfortunately, the answer to that question is YES. I wrote an awesome blog post about automating Twitter using three php scripts that tapped the API using cron jobs.

    Now, they are all useless.

    I guess Twitter is trying to bring people back to replace the bots that run it now.

    Now, I just use Twitterfeed to post my blog posts automatically.

    Personally, I have never benefited much from Twitter other than teaching people how to automate it.
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    • Profile picture of the author tpw
      Originally Posted by thebitbotdotcom View Post

      Unfortunately, the answer to that question is YES. I wrote an awesome blog post about automating Twitter using three php scripts that tapped the API using cron jobs.

      Now, they are all useless.

      I guess Twitter is trying to bring people back to replace the bots that run it now.

      Now, I just use Twitterfeed to post my blog posts automatically.

      Personally, I have never benefited much from Twitter other than teaching people how to automate it.

      That is funny... I did an automated twitter tool also in 2009... then they changed something in Nov 09 and broke my tool too... LOL

      That is when I abandoned writing tools for their platform...
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  • Profile picture of the author thebitbotdotcom
    I just can't get into Twitter manually. If I cannot automate it, I will almost never visit it...just like Facebook...too lame, too boring.

    WARRIOR FORUM IS MUCH MORE FUN!!!
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  • Profile picture of the author theturd
    a large portion of us planned and made adjustments for this
    personally it's been know for so long that we just built our platform based on it
    i am on there both personally and automated
    i love the medium
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    • Profile picture of the author Garin
      I think the reason that Twitter is doing this is because there are tens of thousands of apps that have allowed bots to proliferate throughout Twitter.

      I wrote a book about Twitter Tools, and I think that most apps that are updated frequently and have a close relationship with Twitter will not be compromised.

      Twitter is trying to cut back on spammers and force people to build relevant connections with real people.

      For those who want to build their Twitter Network fast I recommend checking out a program called TweetAdder, which complies with the new Twitter login credentials.

      I recently produced a video review of this program, and you can check it out at TwitterToolsBook.com/tweetadder3

      Cheers,

      Garin
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  • Profile picture of the author StrikeNet
    I don't like their t.co update. I run a social media solution type thing, which one of the main things it does is shortens links for twitter. Now I have to invent some new tricks

    They could still check for malware and stuff, without wrapping everything in t.co

    Just a small rant, my tools aren't breaking though, I started out with OAuth. Very happy about that
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  • Profile picture of the author AOIII
    It wasn't just a matter of them wondering if they were going to break, they broke. I noticed all of my blog posts were failing to update on twitter as of Sep 1.

    The main one I was using (twitter tools) and they did release a upgrade to take care of the issue. What it boils down is their new authorization system, or at least it appear to be, that is called OAuth, requires you to register your application (you can register here: dev.twitter.com) with twitter and if your app does not have this new authorization method in place, it won't work.
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    Chris

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  • Profile picture of the author Stuart Stirling
    yeah I thought something was up.. luckily I don't heavily rely on
    auto twitter posts but I had it running on one of my blogs.. and I
    noticed all tweets stopped September 1st.

    not a big deal as you can use twitterfeed.com : feed your blog to twitter to post to
    twitter via your rss feed. one of my other blogs which uses that is
    still working.

    Stu
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  • Profile picture of the author AOIII
    They recently made it possible for one Twitter application to work on multiple domains. Go to dev.twitter.com and edit your app. On the right hand side, you’ll be able to add domains to your application.
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    Chris

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    • Profile picture of the author JNFerree
      A couple days ago, I posted a blog article on how to DELETE all the spammy DM's in your Twitter account. What got my attention was the number o f ReTweets this article got (42x) which is double the # of ReTweets most of my blog articles get.

      Maybe its because the method I use doesn't cost anything and that it take less than 1 minute to do or maybe its because (like me) the vast majority of the DM's in my main Twitter account (I only have 20k followers) is mostly junk.

      Either way, I thought doing a YT video on how to leverage the TweetMeMe plug-in button for a WordPress blog would add fule to the fire. Then I read on the HubSpo Blog that Twitter's new ReTweet button spells the death of TweetMeMe?

      What do you API guys think about this position?
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  • Profile picture of the author AdvertiseSpace
    Another example of twitter changing the game at their whim and why it is dangerous to build your own business on top of another platform. They can erase your entire company at any time.
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    WSO "How I made over $12,678 dollars from Twitter"
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