Matt GaliganTwitter Chokes Unauthenticated API Requests By IP, Sites Gasp for Air
So I'd just like to chime in as an API user. While Socialthing! uses the authenticated API and we're not at all affected by this, we have similar restrictions at other sites. Up until now, Twitter had really been an anomaly when it comes to how their API is served up (in both authenticated and unauthenticated calls. First off, almost every single other site out there with a popular API has rate limiting on the IP level. Yeah, it sucks, but there's really not many other ways of doing it until push comes to pass. Gnip is a solution for sure, but those same API providers need to plug into Gnip for it to happen.
Twitter is just coming to a point where they're realizing that they can't easily sustain their previous models. Anyone that is currently using unauthenticated calls will soon be able to pull from Gnip to be able to optimize their calls (and likely, be more accurate than they were before).
APIs are a tough game...both on the consumer and the producer level. Twitter understands that their developers are their lifeblood, that's why they're working hard to improve the service for all. I think it's safe to say that the reason they're bumping up the auth'ed calls, and down the unauth'ed calls is because more people actually interact with services that are authenticated. Think Twhirl, Twitterrific, Socialthing!, etc. Now, the non-authenticated services are probably pulling far more data at a much larger detriment to Twitter, but most of the activity isn't going on with those places. This move is a very positive thing for the API as a whole, and you can rest assured that they will likely have other solutions for folks that simply can't auth the API going forward.
Great post, Louis
