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Twitter Shuts Down JSON API and Names New CEO
An anonymous reader writes: This month Twitter is closing down the JSON endpoint API which thousands of third-party software and plugin developers have depended upon for years. The alternative Rest API offers data which is aggregated or limited in other ways, whilst the full-featured share data offered by Gnip (purchased last year by Twitter) can cost developers thousands per month to access — in one case up to £20,000 a month. The general objective seems to be to either drive users back to the core Twitter interface where they can be monetized via the social network's advertising, or to regain lost advertising by converting open source data — currently utilized a lot in scientific research — into premium information, offering the possibility for well-funded organizations to gain reputations as Twitter barometers without ever needing to expose the expensive, accurate share figures. The company also announced today that co-founder Jack Dorsey would be the new CEO.
This more affects folks who built their businesses around aggregating and analyzing data from various social media services. Sucks to be them, I guess.
It does indeed.
The worst thing that ever happened to Twitter was the retweet, just like the worst thing that ever happened to facebook was "share". Both of these things dramatically reduced the usability and usefulness of those sites. It changed the social media from a fun way to keep up with friends to an avalanche of nonsense you don't care about with a few nuggets buried somewhere inside.
This is the lifecycle for anything cool, I guess. Birth > Cool > Widespread adoption > Monetization > Bloat > Death spiral
It's kind of like bands.
School > Bars > Halls > Your mom has heard of them > Greatest Hits released > Stadiums > She likes them > Lamer than Lame Jock McLame.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Indeed. There was an old game from the 70s that was called, "GNIP GNOP". Obviously, they were playing on "Ping Pong". heh
https://boardgamegeek.com/boar...
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
At this rate, the warnings of Richard Stallman in the past casually dismissed as the ranting of an extremist will soon be commonly held as wise and insightful (though still widely ignored by sheep-like consumers).
My irrelevance to Twitter knows no bounds which pleases me greatly. I am nobody's target demographic.
Fifty years of Yippie! 1968-2018
Shut down the CEO and name a new JSON API?
Dunno - seems like the latter happens every time Oracle coughs up a new version of JRE... can't argue with the former, though.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The retweet was a bad move? Am I missing something here? You should only see RTs from people you follow* and unless you're following people with "diarrhea of the mouth," why wouldn't you want to see their tweets? Then again, aside from several like-minded feminists and political/cultural types, I mostly follow news outlets and journalists. Most RTs I get are usually interesting or easily skipped.
*This doesn't count promoted tweets. Once, I got a few tweets for a doctor across the country from me. I tweeted him about the georaphical unlikeliness of my ever visiting him, and he said he'd check the analytics.
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
I thought it would include a late-night infomercial...
(In the old days, the name "K-Tel" would herald the bitter end.)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
LOL ... yeah, whatever.
Twitter's target demographic is people who believe their tweets are actually of any value.
I'm betting an absolutely huge majority of traffic on Twitter is completely pointless and inane ... "I'm going to the bathroom", "the poop is coming out", "meeting Bill and Larry for drinks". That's not "people with a life", that's inane and pointless drivel.
Questioning the value of this isn't about dottering neckbeards, it's about if the platform has much in the way of any real value for most of what it is used for, and also makes us ask "WTF is Twitter valued in the billions for again".
So, maybe all that's really happening is an overvalued company is looking to monetize and leverage synergies, and people who have created products around selling this stuff are getting burned ... the rest of it? Well, I suspect it's at least 22% crap about what those moronic Kardashians are doing now.
"People who have lives" my lily white ass. People who think tweeting means you have a life have no clue.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I've heard Siouxie and the Banshees in elevators, and not just, "Kiss Them For Me." I've heard Tones on Tail in shopping centers, and not just in Hot Topic or Spencer's Gifts.
It's funny to hear bands that were exceedingly controversial played as background music twenty years later. It shows one how quickly some changes can become acceptable.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I'm betting an absolutely huge majority of traffic on Twitter is completely pointless and inane ... "I'm going to the bathroom", "the poop is coming out", "meeting Bill and Larry for drinks".
This uninformed stereotype of twitter activity is outdated.
The vast majority of tweets today are links and retweets. Live example, I just looked at the 10 most recent tweets in my stream. The first 9 are links and the 10th is a comment about WeChat.
Ronco fits in there somewhere. I don't remember exactly, and perhaps that's for the best.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Little known feature (for me, at least): you can disable retweets for specific users you follow. This single feature made it so I could follow users who are retweet-heavy, like pmarca. Instructions here.
Since I also use Tweetbot, I had to delete my cache for this to kick in, but it does work across third party clients.