The platform of “microblogging” wants to make a clean slate with the developers after countless maneuvers that have limited and damaged their collaboration.
It will do so by unifying its application programming interface (API) to “make it easier for programmers to develop new applications that can be easily scaled according to their growth,” the San Francisco-based company says in a statement.
Another clear objective is to be more transparent in terms of the possibilities they will offer and their road map.
Twitter wants these new tools to allow businesses to offer experiences through their social network and meet the needs of their customers.
“By supporting developers who are creating unique functions for their businesses, we will create new revenue streams and a better experience for everyone,” says Andy Piper, chief development officer of the application programming interface platform on Twitter.
The APIs will now be much more simplified and can be used by all developers: from the programmer who wants to test a tool to the big companies that have agreements with Twitter. For this, all the functions of Gnip, the massive data processing and APIs company that bought Twitter in 2014 , are opened .
For the end user, there are several changes that will facilitate the creation and improvement of third-party clients :
- A call is opened to the activity of the account that allows access to all the events in real time. Something severely limited in the clients that depended on constant calls.
- New direct messages API, which will allow developers to catch up with new features such as sending images.
- A more sophisticated search will also be offered. It will be focused on business, but could come through some application.
- The capabilities to create “bots” of answers or information through direct messages are detailed and opened. Function that was limited so far to a few companies.
Although the news will take some time to arrive, it seems that Twitter becomes more transparent as the developers after restricting their API in the past or cancel the conferences addressed to them.