Scripting News: Twitter API news

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

Twitter API news

There are new docs for the Twitter API. They're more philosophical and a bit more dense than the previous version, which may have lacked detail, but it was all guessable, and served well as a crib sheet for programmers. This one, not so much.

Good news, it appears there are two new entry-points for sending and receiving direct messages. I've already written and released glue for the OPML Editor for receiving, I'll do the sending part later this morning. This feature was the basis for the speculation in this March 28 piece.

There's a scary bit in the docs, where they say they're working on an authentication scheme we are not familiar with and have no code to implement. Are they going to break us? I wish I didn't have to worry.

I added a Twitter badge in the right margin. Not sure how long it will last.

MD answers some of the questions I asked on Twitter earlier today. Technorati was the key to me finding his post, btw.

Postscript: I got a note from Alex Payne who's working on the API at Twitter, and he says the current authentication method will not be deprecated, so that's a relief. I'm having fun with this stuff, and adopting a new method of authentication, esp one that isn't supported in my environment, is work! ";->"

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:00:38 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.

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Mar May