YRS lightning talk on using social media APIs, concentrating on twitter search

1. Social Data
Dr Will Simm @willsimm
Catalyst - Lancaster University
YRS Manchester 2012

3. Twitter is......
Tweets, Users, Timelines
& the relationships between those three

4. The Twitter APIs
REST API
Twitter web site functionality
Read / write / DM
Search API
Search in realtime
Streaming API
Maintain a connection
Get live tweets

5. How do we use it?
Check the Docs!
https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api
Construct a URL, hit it and catch the result!
http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q=madlab
Test using the twitter console:
https://dev.twitter.com/console

6. http://bit.ly/O2K9dR

7. What to do with it?
• Display Tweets - http://visibletweets.com
• Summarise tweets
– Using web APIs, e.g. Classify with uclassify.com
• Visualise Tweets
– http://www.edfenergy.com/energy-of-the-
nation/infographic.shtml
– http://www.emoto2012.org

8. Search API Resources
• Javascript (JQuery):
– http://www.jquery4u.com/api-calls/twitter-
search-api/
• PHP:
– http://www.finalwebsites.com/forums/topic/twi
tter-search-using-the-twitter-api-and-php
• Python:
– http://glowingpython.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/h
ow-to-use-twitter-search-api.html

9. Watch Out!
• Rate Limit!
• 150 / 350 (no auth / auth) requests per hour
• API provides mechanism to check your quota
– Data storage!
• Very easy to get a LOT of tweets!
– SQL database / flat files / NoSQL
– Stay within Twitter API T&Cs!!

10. Let me know what you build!
Tweet me: @willsimm
w.simm@lancs.ac.uk
Follow Catalyst: @catalystproj