[BAD NEWS] Twitter API Apocolypse

Found this bad news on Mashable: Looks like more death of social media advertising, exactly as I was predicting months ago.....read on.......

In 9 weeks, June 30th, Twitter will turn off basic authentication for apps, making OAuth the only way to connect to Twitter applications. The Twitter API team has even launched a countdown to what it calls ?OAuthcalypse.?

Currently, there are two ways to connect to apps: basic authentication, where you provide your username and password to a third party, and OAuth, which allows you to connect to apps without giving away your account information. As part of a move to make Twitter more secure and stable, basic authentication will be removed on June 30th. Apps will no longer be allowed to ask for your username and password.

Twitter revealed the news and the countdown clock in an announcement on the Twitter API Google group:

?you?re going to be hearing a lot from me over the next 9 weeks. our plan is to turn off basic authorization on the API by june 30, 2010 ? developers will have to switch over to OAuth by that time. between now and then, there will be A LOT of information coming along with tips on how to use OAuth Echo, xAuth, etc. we really want to make this transition as easy as we can for everybody.?

It?s important to note that there is an exception to the new policy: the streaming API, which helps apps gain near-realtime access to certain sets of Twitter data, will still support basic authentication.

The change in policy and the launch of the OAuthcalypse countdown clock are good moves by the rapidly-growing company: it makes the entire Twitter ecosystem more secure while giving developers plenty of time and notice to switch over their apps to OAuth.

I'm still having trouble figuring out why and what this will mean to our communities. Maybe someone can explain it out a little better?

adbox said:

I'm still having trouble figuring out why and what this will mean to our communities. Maybe someone can explain it out a little better?

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All of those snazzy little programs you just enter a username and password into that spam the crap out of Twitter will virtually be useless unless approved by OAuth through Twitter... and I don't think they are going to be approving too many programs related to automation or any actually.

Does that include mainstream progs like hootsuite and such?

I still believe logging on and posting through CURL will be an option, but this does make things more difficult.

Unless of course your software uses web and not API. This might kill some bots, but it's certainly not going to kill Twitter marketing.

Bots not using the API are coming up... so lets keep our fingers crossed!!!

Yeah.. Twitter API sucks since the beginning. (For blackhat i mean)

utkarshpaliwal said:

Bots not using the API are coming up... so lets keep our fingers crossed!!!

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There are now bots that are not using API. Look at my sig

I don't think Tweet Attacks, uses the API.

Not sure about Tweet Adder.

cadkins45 said:

All of those snazzy little programs you just enter a username and password into that spam the crap out of Twitter will virtually be useless unless approved by OAuth through Twitter... and I don't think they are going to be approving too many programs related to automation or any actually.

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LOL. I know for a fact OAuth will not be be a factor in anything your claiming, your two posts arn't backed by any research from personal experience. Sorry to be harsh, but Mashables & twitters claims are so wrong its a joke.

I use OAuth everyday to automate link farming, metaphorically its similar to openid, a single sign-on & that dosn't stop social media spam.

OAuth is about federated sites integration, cloud computing & the real time web....it will actually lead to MORE social media spam as the one bot will be able to login into all the sites running Oauth.

You do understand that most bots are web/browser based, not API based, & don't need application approve because they act like a human? API bots have always been begging for the ban hammer

muchacho said:

I don't think Tweet Attacks, uses the API.

Not sure about Tweet Adder.

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TweetAttacks does not use API. Except for the bonus module (for now).

TweetAdder uses API and most others.

Cool... This means less competition for those of us that use Tweet Attacks.

filmy

cadkins45 said:

All of those snazzy little programs you just enter a username and password into that spam the crap out of Twitter will virtually be useless unless approved by OAuth through Twitter... and I don't think they are going to be approving too many programs related to automation or any actually.

Click to expand...

They dont manually approve outh programs..its automated and each requests gets approved.

ITs nothing shocking news..they declared months ago..that they will be shutting this down.


For BHW members it wont effect much..just the
software providers will need to update there softwares accordingly
For users the initial setup phase will consist of a few more steps.

Thats it..Today's IM is too strong to get effected by such changes.

The only difference between OAuth and Basic Authentication is that OAuth is kind of a pain to implement compared to basic authentication. It's better to just automate the web interface anyway. Twitter looks at accounts constantly being accessed via the API with a very suspicious eye.

erroronline14 said:

Yeah.. Twitter API sucks since the beginning. (For blackhat i mean)




There are now bots that are not using API. Look at my sig

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Social Media sites will always try and find ways to stop us. We will always be one step ahead finding ways around them.

trevor1617 said:

Social Media sites will always try and find ways to stop us. We will always be one step ahead finding ways around them.

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Yes, and change happen everywhere. We just need to adopt, and only those who adopt will survive.

I use Tweet attacks and they run with a web base not API. There are a ton of programs now that do not use API. This really is not a big deal unless API apps and programs are all you use then i would tell you to switch over. But all and all not a big deal.

Oauth has web interface as well so not problem at all.

For anyone that uses TweetAdder, I contacted them about this future potential problem and this was their response:

'Hey there,

We are already in the process of updating the program so it will be
compatible with the changes coming from twitter. Not only will we continue
to provide the same excellent service, but we will have more tools and
functionality than any of the other programs out there. You will be
automatically notified once this new release is available. In the meantime,
please feel free to contact us back with any further questions or comments
you may have about the program.

Thank you,
Tweetadder Support'

So I'm not worried by this. However anyone that has a hacked version might not be able to use it when this comes in.

Steve.

What about WP plugin Twittertools? Any info on its faith?