Back in September 2012, Twitter released it's REST API v.1.1 and announced plans for March this year (2013) to retire it's API v.1. One of the major changes is the way that Twitter are trying to stop third parties from replicating the core Twitter experience. However, there are a couple of other changes which if you're currently pulling in a Twitter feed on your website you need to be aware of.
Along with the new API, Twitter have introduced rate limiting to 180 requests per hours. That means that each account can only query the Twitter service 180 times per hour - introducing this should take the load off Twitter but does make it essential that if you're implementing a Twitter feed on a website that you'll need to cache it.
The other major change is that all requests now require authentication, and Twitter are retiring the RSS and ATOM feeds. This means that any website which is using a javascript plugin to display Tweets is going to cease to work. Additionally, Twitter has said that any sites which are using any of it's older widgets should move to the new Embedded Timeline feature.
When is it happening?
Starting on March 5, 2013, Twitter are going to be conducting a series of blackout tests. Basically, their going to switch off these services for short periods of time - if you're site uses one of these methods to display your Twitter feed it will stop working when Twitter carry out these blackouts.
So what are the options?
Twitter offer a new
Embedded Timeline which you can use as the official Twitter widget. While it offers quite a lot of functionality, it's very limited in terms of styling - there are basically a light and a dark theme. It is also restrictive in terms of it's dimensions - the minimum width of a timeline is 220px and the maximum is 520px. The minimum height is 350px.
For clients who'd like more control over how their Tweets display on their site, we're working on Twitter plugin for Sitesuma. As it's a custom solution we can style this to fit the design of the website.
If you'd like to talk through the options for your website then please get in touch.