Twitter is still recovering from the fallout from yesterday's sizeable attack on high-profile accounts, but is continuing to move forward with its plans to implement a new version of its developer API. Today the company announces its new Twitter API v2, rebuilt from scratch. The new base, which was rebuilt for the first time since 2012, includes features that were missing from the previous API, such as the conversation thread, the results of the survey in tweets, blocked tweets, spam filter and more powerful stream filter and language of search query. Additionally, it was designed in a way that will allow Twitter to release new features faster than in past years, the company says.
Although Twitter claims that it has no evidence that yesterday's security incident had anything to do with its API, actually turning it on today, as expected, had to take a step back to make sure Twitter and its accounts are safe and secure. The company now plans to release API v2 and other content, such as its new support center, documentation and other blog posts with details next week.
Twitter's v2 API will introduce multiple access levels, replacing the previous three-level system in the current API (v1.1).
Today the Twitter API is divided into three platforms: Standard (free), Premium (paid self-service) and Enterprise. But this made it difficult for developers to migrate from one level to another. The new API will eventually - and completely replace - all three and instead serve all users on three different product tracks, designed to fit different groups of developers. These tracks include the Standard track, which is about to be launched today, while the Business and Academic / Research tracks will arrive soon. Within each track, Basic, High or Custom access levels will also be available.
"We definitely know that one size is not good for everyone, and we wanted to make it easier for more developers to successfully build with us," says Ian Cairns, product manager of the Twitter development platform. One of those tracks will always be free, he added. "Twitter exists to serve public conversation and keeping an API free and open is really important to us," he said.
The basic access level of the standard track will always be free, says Twitter, and is designed for developers who have just started.
The company has not finalized its prices for other levels, but says through its conversations with the developers, it has come to understand how its prices and its speed limit model were limiting the developers, especially the researchers and those who they build for fun. The new price should take into consideration different types of developer needs and will offer free and paid levels within the high level within the academic research path.
The standard product track could enable Twitter's fun tools, utilities and bots, such as BlockParty, TweetDelete, Tokimeki Unfollow, HAM: Drawing Bot, Hansard House of Lords and Emoji Mashup.
The API Business, meanwhile, will support companies that "serve innovative use cases," says Twitter.
This is an area where Twitter has a complicated history, since in the past it has pulled the carpet from under the feet of developers building alternative Twitter clients and has even deceived its partners. Twitter today defines the use cases it intends to support such as those that offer things like "social prediction of future product trends, consumer insights based on artificial intelligence and FinTech market information", such as Black Swan, Spiketrap and Social Market Analytics .
However, Twitter made it clear in a press call that it had talked to the manufacturers of third-party customers to understand how it could work better with them in the future, and noted that no policy regarding its support is changing right now. Those clients will also be able to use the new features in v2. The company has not yet stated, clearly and definitively, that it has no plans to change the way these companies operate today.
Instead, Twitter explained to ProWellTech that it believes these clients "deserve clarity on how to operate" with the new API. But this clarity may require Twitter to take a fresh look at its policy and product access details, added Twitter, adding that it is looking forward to determining how best to work with this group. Given that the API has been in development for over a year, this is a disappointing response for experienced Twitter users who prefer third-party customers, such as Tweetbot, Twitterific, Echofon and others. Twitter took a long time to give that "new look", and hasn't made a decision yet, apparently.
In addition, it will serve the corporate API chirping Official partners such as Brandwatch, Sprinklr and Sprout Social and Twitter corporate data customers. This track in the future will include high and personalized access to relevant endpoints.
The next academic / research path, meanwhile, will allow qualified researchers to learn what's going on in Twitter's public conversation.
Today, developers use Twitter data to research a range of topics, such as people's attitudes to COVID-19, the social impact of floods and climate change, and the prevalence of hate speech online. This will also later add high and personalized access to relevant endpoints and it will be the first time Twitter will build a product tailored to the specific needs of the researchers, he says.
Of all these, only the standard API product is ready to ship next week, with a new set of features offered for free at the basic level. Its launch will be followed by the Academic / Research product track and Twitter will therefore continue to release the new API incrementally in the coming months. However, it will take some time to move developers from v1.1 to v2, so the roadmap and documentation of the Twitter API can help guide them on when the changes will occur.
Twitter's "firehose" data (the entire flow) will continue to be available only in limited partnerships, such as today. Twitter says that most developers don't want it, even when they have high data access needs, because it's difficult to work with Firehose data.
The company says that the decision to rebuild its development platform was born because Twitter must more easily scale a large number of API endpoints for both planned and future features. (Perhaps related: a job description on Twitter that mentioned his plans to "build a subscription platform." Could this require a new API?)
In the current version of the API, the endpoints are implemented by a large set of HTTP microservices, a decision made by Twitter when it was redesigned by Ruby in 2013. This ended up creating a disjointed product in which independent teams worked on their endpoints without coordinating with others.
Twitter has been testing new API features for over a year as part of its Twitter Developer Labs program, a move towards construction in public. This change allowed the company to get real-time feedback from the developer community while the product was being created outdoors. The developers told Twitter they wanted better documentation, access to a busy community, a test sandbox, easier insertion, and other features.
Twitter specifically responded to these requests for a new redesigned developer portal. The portal will offer an onboarding wizard to simplify the recovery of API keys. The portal also allows developers to manage their apps, understand the use and limitations of APIs, access a new support center, find documentation and more. Developers will also be able to view Twitter's public roadmap and read a "Guide to the Future of the Future" chirping API ", which will arrive next week when v2 starts, for more information on what to expect.
Next week, Twitter will launch "Early Access" to an initial series of new endpoints. Unlike Twitter Lab Developers, Early Access will be ready for production and fully supported. The new endpoints will allow developers to stream tweets in real time, analyze past conversations, measure Tweet performance, listen to important events and explore tweets from any account. Over the next few weeks, Twitter will decide what other new features it might switch to API-like voice tweets or allow only a select audience to respond to your tweets, for example.
Twitter says it will continue to share updates on v2 before deprecating any existing products.
"Our intent is to provide a lot of migration time - along with resources to help - when we depreciate existing endpoints. We know that migrations can be challenging and we are committed to doing our part to make migration to our new API the most as simple as possible, "said a spokesman.
There will be some exceptions, however. For example, by the end of the year, Twitter will announce a shorter deprecation window for status / sample states v1.1 and statues / filters. Their replacements will be launched next week in v2.
Developers can start with Early Access through the Developer Portal when the v2 API starts.
