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Quick techie update here, since it’s on my mind…
Are you a Twitter user? I am not. Well, not really. I never really had any need for it, though I would and do often recommend it to my web clients. It’s a great way to keep in touch with clients, send out short updates, links, multimedia, etc to people who follow you or your product.
But as an individual, it just seemed… well, not for me.
However… I do follow people via Twitter. Folks who share newsy updates, sports-related tidbits, etc. I finally broke down and set up a “Buffalo Bills” account for myself to follow (and yes, even interact with) the Buffalo sports world. That’s been interesting. (Even have gotten to interact with Bills Hall of Famer, Thurman Thomas, which is neat…) But still not really for me.
The way I prefer to follow regularly published updates (to any service) is via RSS. Using Mail.app in Mac OS X, I simply add the RSS feed and I get any RSS item to my inbox with all my other email. (Links to the full web content included with the RSS item.)
BUT, Twitter changed all that when they dropped support for RSS feeds with the release of their new API last month. (September 5th, I believe.)
I wondered why I was seeing the dreaded triangle with the exclamation point icon in my inbox. After a small amount of research today, I ascertained that my method of obtaining updates is (at least slightly) antiquated.
Yes. I am old-fashioned.
(Wait… can you be “old-fashioned” if you use RSS? Hmm…)
Well, after a bit more research, I learned there is still a “backdoor” way to get a timeline via RSS! (Yes!)
It’s quite simple. Use the URL below, and just replace the Xs with the username of the person whose timeline you wish to receive as an RSS feed. It’s that easy!
http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=XXXX
We’ll see how much longer that backdoor option remains open. But it works for now.
Thanks to SEO-Alien.com for the info.
UPDATE: Jun 12, 2013
(From the dev.twitter.com homepage:) Having trouble with your app? API v1 is retired and no longer functional. | Read more →