Twitter wants you to know that it hasn’t given up on developers and that it’s charging forward with efforts to make it easier for them to build applications on its platform. Today, the company announced a more “unified” API platform, which it said came about through feedback gleaned from its #HelloWorld tour last year. In addition to adding new features and streamlining APIs, Twitter has published its 2017 roadmap so developers can be aware of upcoming improvements.
“One of the most common requests we hear from developers is for an easy and predictable way to smoothly scale access to Twitter’s APIs,” wrote company staff developer advocate Andy Piper, in a blog post. While developers generally have access to the standard REST and streaming APIs, the real power comes through Gnip, the company Twitter acquired in 2014. The disparity between the haves and have-nots caused some soul-searching on Twitter’s part, and later this year the company plans to launch a “new developer experience” that merges the free and easy access of the REST and streaming APIs with the enterprise-level features of Gnip.
“The goal is to create an integrated Twitter API platform that serves everyone, from an individual developer testing a new idea to Twitter’s largest enterprise partners,” Piper said. As a result, there will now be individual APIs for accessing the Twitter firehose and tweet archive and for receiving real-time activities for an account — including tweets, direct messages, likes, and follows.
Twitter will also implement new tiers of access, with a free plan for those needing access to test and build new products; a self-serve, paid tier with undisclosed advance functionality and higher rate limits; and an enterprise-level plan targeted at strategic partners. Specific pricing has not been revealed, but the company promised that it’ll “clearly define” the scope and costs for each tier.
Forthcoming developer products
Above: Developers line up in front of the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Calif. for Twitter’s Flight conference on October 21, 2015.
Image Credit: Taylor Layne Photography | www.TLaynePhoto.com
While the upgraded platform experience won’t be available until later, Twitter has some news about developer products. Starting today, app makers can take advantage of the following:
- An Account Activity API available in beta that provides a feed of real-time activities around individual accounts. (Later, Twitter will update this API to include replies, @mentions, retweets, likes, follows, and more. It’ll also have enterprise features to facilitate large-scale access.)
- New endpoints for sending and receiving direct messages that also support quick replies, something Twitter recently…