Twitter’s API platform enables a robust ecosystem of developers and innovators to build solutions using public Twitter data that serve a wide range of needs. Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ll be unifying our API platform to make it easier for developers to build new applications that can smoothly scale as they grow. We’re also launching new APIs and endpoints that enable developers to build on the unique attributes of Twitter to create better experiences for businesses. Developers can see where we’re focusing and what we’re building with our newly-published API platform roadmap.
Before we dive into the details, let’s talk about why the API platform is important to Twitter today. Why are we spending time and energy building APIs for developers?
Our API platform enables us, through the help of our developer ecosystem, to serve use cases and encourage innovation that leads to a better experience for everyone on Twitter. Over the years, we’ve seen a wide range of developers build successful solutions — from Sprout Social delivering social media management to over 17,000 brands, to LikeFolio alerting investors to shifts in consumer behavior, to the USGS using Twitter data to track earthquakes, and many more.
As we look ahead, we’re building on this success by launching new APIs and refining existing endpoints in order to help developers innovate for businesses. We see a huge opportunity for businesses to harness the power of Twitter in all aspects of their operations — from responding to customer needs and creating delightful customer experiences to identifying emerging trends, making better products, and more. By supporting developers who are building to address unique business needs, we’ll create new sources of revenue and a better experience for everyone. The value created through these efforts is ultimately good for anyone building on our platform, as it will fund the investments that will support the innovations of tomorrow.
One of the most common requests we hear from developers is for an easy and predictable way to smoothly scale access to Twitter’s APIs. Since 2006, we’ve had a set of broadly available REST and real-time (streaming) APIs that provide access to a range of features and functions. In 2014, we acquired Gnip, a partner who built a suite of enterprise-grade APIs for the world’s largest and most demanding software companies to create solutions with Twitter data. The Gnip APIs provide deeper access to public data from the Firehose and greater functionality than the standard REST and streaming APIs, but have a price point that is often out of range for developers just starting to scale their businesses. As we’ve met and listened to developers at events around the world and in our developer discussion forums, we’ve heard that this can be a source of frustration.
Later this year, we’ll be launching a new developer experience that combines the free and easy access of the standard REST and streaming APIs with the enterprise-grade power and reliability of Gnip. The goal is to create an integrated Twitter API platform that serves everyone, from an individual developer testing a new idea to Twitter’s largest enterprise partners. This will simplify and strengthen our developer platform so that anyone building with us can confidently create and scale their applications, products, and businesses.
In practice, this means the following:
In addition to unifying our platform, we’ll be launching new services that build on the unique attributes of Twitter to serve the needs of developers building solutions for businesses.
As we invest in making this vision a reality, we want to give visibility to our product launches through early 2018. We’ve published an API platform roadmap so you can track our progress and see an overview of the updates we have planned.
Here are a few of the most important things we’re shipping:
Along with these product updates, we’ll also be providing improved guidance around key areas of the platform, and simplifying our API footprint to help us move faster. Important changes to note include:
These efforts represent a massive new engineering and product investment in the future of the Twitter API platform, and in our developer ecosystem. We couldn’t be more excited about the products we’ll be releasing over the course of the next year, and we look forward to talking with you about them in more depth!
As we solidify the details behind each of these initiatives, we’ll share more right here on our Developer Blog, on Twitter, and in our Developer Forums. Look for more soon.
Did someone say … cookies?
X and its partners use cookies to provide you with a better, safer and
faster service and to support our business. Some cookies are necessary to use
our services, improve our services, and make sure they work properly.
Show more about your choices.