Scripting News: Programming Twitter at 4AM

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

Programming Twitter at 4AM

I guess the next step in my exploration is to program a simple app that uses the Twitter API. And just like the old days, in the 70s, I'm up in the middle of the night because that's when the system is fast enough to actually get some work done.

During the day, Twitter is very slow. As a user this is somewhat workable, but if you're developing an app, it's excruciating. And it's possible that my app might not function at all when the system is overloaded. I'm feeling this stuff out. Any help from someone experienced at developing on Twitter would be much appreciated.

Okay, I don't want to announce what I'm trying to create, because I might not be able to get it to work, and then there will be users who will be disappointed when I turn the thing off (that never really worked). But in general, it's a newsbot. I'm sure a lot of other people are doing these, it's kind of an obvious thing to try, right?

Anyway, I'm wondering if Twitter keeps you from posting too frequently and if so, what's the maximum rate you can post? I'm finding that after doing some work, the connection closes as I'm waiting for a response. It could be that I'm being throttled, or it could be that the server is having problems even in the middle of the night, even when the web UI is fast.

If you have any insight, please post a comment.

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:00:34 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

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