Twitter API: Up and Running: Learn How to Build Applications with the Twitter API
- ISBN13: 9780596154615
- Condition: New
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This groundbreaking book provides you with the skills and resources necessary to build web applications for Twitter. Perfect for new and casual programmers intrigued by the world of microblogging, Twitter API: Up and Running carefully explains how each part of Twitter’s API works, with detailed examples that show you how to assemble those building blocks into practical and fun web applications. You’ll also get a complete look at Twitter culture and learn how it has inspired programmers to build
Rating: 
(out of 7 reviews)
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Review by Mark J. Szymanski for Twitter API: Up and Running: Learn How to Build Applications with the Twitter API
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This book provides a nice overview of the Twitter API with a few examples, but the organization of the book could make learning a little more engaging. There is a lot of up-front description of the disparate features, with no working examples presented until the latter chapters of the book.
I’m also not sure if the author had a clear idea of the intended audience. It seems odd that there are things like detailed walkthroughs of how to set up a Twitter account, but no thorough discussion of data parsing.
Review by calvinnme for Twitter API: Up and Running: Learn How to Build Applications with the Twitter API
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Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service where users send and receive very small text-based posts. The short length of these messages and the simplicity of the service causes the message traffic to be labeled descriptively as tweets. However, even a very simple messaging service requires programming these days, and that is where this very accessible book comes in.
This book is an introduction to build web applications via the Twitter API. This book has three main parts: an overview of the Twitter social issues; background information on the languages and environment you need to create your applications; and finally code for sample applications that will get you started. Anyone familiar with computer programming and web applications should be able to just read the PHP scripts used to create the sample applications and understand how the underlying syntax works.
The reader needs a basic understanding of how applications are built and hosted on the Web. However, strangely enough, you don’t need to be a professional programmer. The XHTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL code necessary for building the example applications will be provided and explained.
Chapter 1, “Hello Twitter”, is not your usual intro chapter on a basic Hello Twitter program. Instead it is a chapter on the culture and social aspects of Twitter. Anyone can pick up this chapter and understand what Twitter is and where it is coming from in a social and historical context.
Chapter 2, “Twitter Applications”, reviews third-party Twitter apps. The purpose, however, is not to present you with a directory of the world’s best Twitter applications. Instead, the purpose of this list is to show you some of the things that can be done with a web application using the Twitter API. These applications may provide some inspiration for your own projects.
Chapter 3, “Web Programming Basics”, provides an overview of the basic knowledge and tools needed to create the applications described later in the book. Although the Twitter API can be used to create desktop and mobile applications as well, this book focuses on the web platform built with PHP and MySQL.
Chapter 4, “Meet the Twitter API”, introduces you to the building blocks for your future application – the ways that you can send commands in Twitter. This chapter describes these specific request methods available through the Twitter API. Each section, presents one of the 40 existing API methods and explain what is needed to get data from Twitter using that method. These 40 methods are grouped into seven categories: Publishing, Information Stream, Follow Network, Communication, Member Account, API Administration, and Search.
Chapter 5, “Meet the Output”, takes a close look at the information Twitter sends to you in response to your requests for data. It goes hand in hand with the previous chapter on commands.
Chapter 6, “Application Setup”, shows what you might find under the hood of those Twitter applications mentioned in chapter two by having you build one of your own. In this chapter, you prepare your web environment to run a suite of sample web applications built to illustrate different interactions with the API. The setup includes establishing a Twitter account, creating tables in a MySQL database, and making a directory for included files. Chapters 7 and 8 contain descriptions of the applications and automated tasks
Chapter 7, “Sample Applications”, is where you examine the sample web applications that can serve as a base for your own projects. There are seven of them that all illustrate a different aspect of the use of the Twitter API. Detailed code is included.
Chapter 8, “Automated Tasks”, examines the code that performs the behind-the-scenes operations that give the tools their functionality. As in the previous chapter, the descriptions of the code in this chapter build on each other. The first application will be discussed in more detail than the later ones because they share a lot of code structure and logic.
The appendix provides a basic look at the Twitter API, listing the method path, whether it requires authentication, if it is charged against your rate limit, the HTTP method type, and any required and optional parameters.
This first book (as far as I know) on the Twitter API is a very good one, and highly recommended for those of you who are interested in writing your own applications.
Review by Michael Schilli for Twitter API: Up and Running: Learn How to Build Applications with the Twitter API
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The author did a pretty good job of explaining the Twitter API, some basic Web programming techniques (PHP, CSS), a whirlwind tour of current and past Twitter-related websites and some more or less useful sample applications.
However, the editor at O’Reilly should have talked the author into whipping the book into better shape before publishing it. First, in a book that has more than 400 pages on a pretty simple API, one would at least expect a section that explains how Twitter actually works. A sample flow of messages, responses, direct messages with illustrating screen shots. A bit of history maybe? Was Twitter like that from the beginning? What changed? When? Also, the publisher should have looked at the index and said: “Dude, this is okay for an auto-generated index, but if you want people to actually use the book to find something, put some more effort into it”. Again, not the authors fault, that’s the editor’s responsibility.
I’m giving 4 stars because the author’s writing is solid, but, man, a big minus point for O’Reilly to let this slip into the open without stricter review.
Review by Ravi Gokulgandhi for Twitter API: Up and Running: Learn How to Build Applications with the Twitter API
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I picked up this book when i was in the process of getting reference material for integrating twitter into one of my portal apps. However, this book turned out to be full fledged bible for building apps for twitter and integrating it to enterprise apps.
Chapter 1 – For a thing to have meaning, it must have context. This chapter will introduce you to the whole world of twitter, its terminologies and slangs and tips and guidelines to use twitter. Frankly, it changed my perspective (and my design) towards the integration piece I was working on.
I recommend this book to any developer who wants a perspective on designing, developing and integrating apps for twitter.
Ravi Gokulgandhi
Review by Shawn Gallagher for Twitter API: Up and Running: Learn How to Build Applications with the Twitter API
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I was amazed by the amount of information in this book. It gives you a good overview of what Twitter is and other background information about the micro-blogging site. Then from there it takes you through Twitter apps, Web programming, and then on to using the Twitter API. It is a great book to learn more about Twitter and building your web app. I think anyone interested in building an app should definitely consider this book.
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Is this possible?
yes, this is possible. Give me the link to your blog…
I shared your post on my twitter account, thnks.