twitter api notes

http://apiwiki.twitter.com/

API is entirely HTTP-based

The Twitter API supports UTF-8 encoding. Please note that angle brackets ("<" and ">") are entity-encoded to prevent Cross-Site Scripting attacks for web-embedded consumers of JSON API output. The resulting encoded entities do count towards the 140 character limit. When requesting XML, the response is UTF-8 encoded. Symbols and characters outside of the standard ASCII range may be translated to HTML entities.

Two APIs - REST and Search.

    The Twitter REST API methods allow developers to access core Twitter data. This includes update timelines, status data, and user information.

    The Search API methods give developers methods to interact with Twitter Search and trends data. The concern for developers given this separation is the effects on rate limiting and output format.


Rate Limiting

    REST API
        150 calls per hour
        The REST API does account- and IP-based rate limiting. Authenticated API calls are charged to the authenticating user's limit while unauthenticated API calls are deducted from the calling IP address' allotment.
        Rate limiting only applies to methods that request information with the HTTP GET command. API methods that use HTTP POST to submit data to Twitter, such as statuses/update do not affect rate limits.
        Can request whitelisting to make up to 20000 requests per hour.

    Search API
        The Search API is rate limited by IP address. The actual limit is not specified but it is quite high.
        requires that applications include a unique and identifying User Agent string. A HTTP Referrer is expected but is not required.