Sunday, April 18

Little known @Twitter and @TwitterAPI tips and tricks

Be sure to comeback as new tips and tricks get added. If you know of anything I missed be sure to let me know.

Static URL for profile images based on screen_name:

https://api.twitter.com/1/users/profile_image/abraham

* This performs a http redirect to the actual profile image URL. Currently https redirects to http. You can also add "?size={mini | bigger | normal}" to get specific sizes.

Redirect to profile based on user_id:

https://twitter.com/account/redirect_by_id?id=9436992

In_reply_to_status_id mentions:

https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json?status=reply+to+@abraham&in_reply_to_status_id=12410413197

* In the web interface new mentions are only replies if they start with @screen_name. By pushing @screen_name further along in the string your followers who do not follow @screen_name will still see the status.

Profile image sizes:

http://a3.twimg.com/profile_images/54160223/chart-black-small.png

* By default you get the original image size you can add _mini, _normal, and _bigger just before the image extension to change the size returned.

Block account link:

https://twitter.com/blocks/confirm/twitterapi

Follow account link:

https://twitter.com/friendships/add/abraham

*This URL stopped working sometime in 2009.

Logged out profile view:

https://twitter.com/loggedout/profile/abraham

Whitelisted IP:

Whitelisted IPs provide 20,000 GET request per authenticated user per hour, not a cumulative limit of 20,000 GET requests per hour.

SMS commands work through the API:

http://help.twitter.com/forums/59008/entries/14020-the-official-twitter-text-commands

Link to Twitter pages using the @screen_name syntax:

https://twitter.com/abraham/status/12413206301

View geotagged statuses on Google Maps:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://api.twitter.com/1/twitter/lists/team/statuses.atom

Consistant @screen_name, #hashtag, and @screen_name/list linking and extraction:

http://github.com/mzsanford/twitter-text-rb

*Currently there are Ruby, Java, and PHP libraries.

Consistant character counting for statuses:

http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Counting-Characters

Twitter string translations:

http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-String-Translations

Security@twitter.com's PGP key

http://apiwiki.twitter.com/SecurityPublicKey

Map of a Twitter status object:

http://mehack.com/map-of-a-twitter-status-object

Search by app sources with spaces:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=the+source%3Atwitterforandroid

Mobile friendly page to enable Geo:

https://twitter.com/account/geo

Check if your current visitor is authenticated with Twitter:

https://twitter.com/sessions/present
on this post by on Sunday, April 18, 2010 tagged with ,

6 comments on this:

  1. Very cool. What I'd like to see (it's apparently not yet possible) is a link to a page that lets you natively retweet a particular tweet. Something like:

    http://twitter.com/taestell/status/4913549205839872/retweet
    or
    http://twitter.com/retweet/4913549205839872
    ReplyDelete
  2. @taestell: That could be useful. I don't recall anyone ever requesting it as a feature: http://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/list
    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice list. I believe Twitter has constraints on the use of the Static URL for profile images. In fact, I don't believe you can utilize that method to display the twitter profile image on your site. Can't find the docs for this right now to confirm.
    ReplyDelete
  4. @wiscodude: the status URL for profile images is rate limited and while it works Twitter specifically recommends against using it in HTML. http://dev.twitter.com/doc/get/users/profile_image/:screen_name

    I do cover a good way to avoid broken profile images in another blog post though: http://blog.abrah.am/2010/11/say-no-to-broken-twitter-avatars.html
    ReplyDelete
  5. @wiscodude: the status URL for profile images is rate limited and while it works Twitter specifically recommends against using it in HTML. http://dev.twitter.com/doc/get/users/profile_image/:screen_name

    I do cover a good way to avoid broken profile images in another blog post though: http://blog.abrah.am/2010/11/say-no-to-broken-twitter-avatars.html
    ReplyDelete
  6. Very cool. What I'd like to see (it's apparently not yet possible) is a link to a page that lets you natively retweet a particular tweet. Something like:

    http://twitter.com/taestell/status/4913549205839872/retweet
    or
    http://twitter.com/retweet/4913549205839872
    ReplyDelete

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