Remember When Using Twitter Was Fun And Easy?

Recently, Twitter released the latest update to its API (application programming interface) and completely cleared out support for the previous version. An API is a programming language that allows two different applications to interface with each other, such as displaying a list of your Tweets at a website. Since then, what was once a simple process is now a royal pain in the neck.

ADAPTISTRATION-GUY-070For example, in order to display a list of tweets from a specific account all you needed in most cases was the Twitter username or the user URL, such as @adaptistration or https://twitter.com/Adaptistration. Now users will need to jump through a myriad of hoops in order to set something like that up, all of which begins at a site you’ll love to hate in short order: https://dev.twitter.com/apps.

Officially, Twitter claims the update is to provide a more consistent user experience but that’s mostly corporate spin for offering less flexibility, higher development costs, and usage limits (not to mention an ideal way for Twitter to begin serving up ads alongside with your feed data).

All grousing aside, here’s what you need to do today: check any widgets or scripts at your organization’s website that display a Twitter feed to see if they are still functioning properly. If any of them aren’t, odds are it is because they are no longer compliant with Twitter’s API 1.1 standards.

In order to get them working again, you’ll need to find a different third party solution (or download an updated version), pay a developer to write a new version, or just find a different solution. Either way, you’ll still need to get over to time-suck central to create a Twitter app, generate access tokens and secret keys, and making sure the rest of your related OAuth settings are properly setup.

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

Related Posts

Leave a Comment