This week, developers are being pushed to use version 1.1 of the Twitter API and I wanted to write a quick post to clarify how this may affect this service.
Firstly let’s clarify how Tweet4me works.
Every 2.5 minutes we do the following:-
1. GET the DM listing for Tweet4me
2. Parse the DMs, save valid Tweets to the DB for scheduling
3. Delete the DMs
4. Send a DM back to the user to confirm receipt / or error
5. Process the Tweet at the scheduled time on behalf of the user, send a DM to let them know it’s gone live.
In API 1.1, only item 1 appears to be rate limited. This means we can only check 15 times in 15 minutes. All other items are as far as I know, not rate limited so we shouldn’t get any problems posting tweets, deleting messages or sending you DM updates.
In terms of the rate limited GET on direct messages, currently we’re within that limit. We check 6 times as part of the scheduled task and 3 times as part of an external up-time check (via Pingdom).
So right now, in a 15 minute window and for both Tweet4me and Buffer for me, we check
NINE TIMES
(you’ve got Principle Rooney’s voice in your head right now haven’t you?)
Tonight I’ve done some final checks on end points have been tested with 1.1 and *hope* that it’s all sorted and going to work fine from tomorrow when Twitter start the big push.
If not, I’m taking my Dads car out for a spin to the big city.
:)
We made a slight change today to notifications as a prelude to a better notification system which we’re working on.
Previous you received a Direct Message (DM) to say we’ve scheduled your Tweet but you only got notified when it when it posted posted if you added your e-mail address and selected to receive notifications via BoxCar.
We’ve now made it the default that you’ll get a DM back to tell you we’ve posted your Tweet. You can select to get Boxcar notifications and if you do we’ll use that and *won’t* send you a DM.
We’re working on improving these settings allowing DM, Boxcar and E-mail notifications as well as potential support for other Push notification apps.
Hope you like it.
It was awesome when we added integration with Buffer allowing you to post to your buffer stream from any twitter client using “d tweet4me +b TWEET” or “d buffer4me TWEET” formats.
However, we only supported posting to ONE social profile in Buffer, that being a Twitter account.
We weren’t totally happy about that and have wanted to change it for a while.
Well, we sorted it today with an update we’ve just put live allowing you to select any number of your social profiles in Buffer.
Once connected, you can use the service as normal and we’ll post to ALL the profiles at the same time.
So, “d buffer4me TWEET” can now post to multiple places at the same time.
To update your account login to Tweet4.me, go to Settings, disconnect your buffer and re-connect it, at which point you can select multiple accounts.
Merry Christmas!
We were alerted to an issue earlier (thanks @bschorr) where users were unable to connect/login via Twitter. This seemed to highlight a much bigger issue we were having with the Twitter API which brought down the system.
Still not quite sure of the cause or if it’s a temporary glitch with Twitter that will fix itself but in the meantime we’ve put some workarounds in place to ensure API requests go through.
Any problems let us know.
Happy Scheduling!
Today we updated the way we show what date and time your tweets will be posted. Previously we sent you back confirmation and displayed dates/times in your schedule in GMT format.
From today we’ll automatically show your dates and times in local time based on the timezone information we captured when we scheduled the tweet for you.
For some, rare instances where we don’t have a zone stored, we’ll continue to display the GMT time but this shouldn’t happen unless you sent us the schedule tweet a long time ago when we weren’t storing timezones.
For clarification, when we display a date/time we’ll append the timezone description so it’s clear what
Tested and works great - let us know what you think!
We’ve had to make some changes overnight to allow new users to sign up.
For a few users were seeing an issue where we couldn’t follow them back (a key requirement of making the service work).
The issue was the result of limits imposed by Twitter when an account follows 2000+ users.
To resolve this we are having to ensure all users who have signed up to the service follow us. This will allow new users to sign up.
To that end you may notice a) you’ve followed us and b) you’re seeing us in your timeline again b
We hope you appreciate the reasons and support us in ensuring we can offer this unique service to as many users (correction “customers”) as possible ;)
Update: Here’s the post on the Twitter blog relating to this issue.
We’ve just launched a new method to post to @bufferapp.
Sign-in at http://tweet4.me, go to settings and connect your Buffer account (if you’ve already done that, disconnect and reconnect again).
Once done you can send a Tweet to Buffer from ANY client by either typing this:-
d tweet4me +b YOUR TWEET
or this:-
d buffer4me YOURTWEET
as a new Tweet in your favourite client.
Sweet!
We’ve made a few site updates this week that we’d like to share with you.
Firstly, we’ve added a blog where we can share all kinds of news, tips, advice on how to get the best from Tweet4me.
Secondly, we’ve added something cool - Buffer support. Login via Twitter, got to Settings and connect your Buffer account and once you’ve selected the profile you’d like to use, you can send a Buffered Tweet by typing the following into your Twitter client:-
d tweet4me +b MESSAGE
We’ll push this to your Buffer account where it will go out based on your schedule.
Thanks and keep Tweeting!
