Twitter API: Up and Running

Chapter 7. Sample Applications

kmakice No more walking. Time to run.

The stage is set. You understand the Twitter culture and have seen examples of web applications developed by your peers. You have at least a basic understanding of how to work with PHP, MySQL, and other languages. You understand how to access the API and what you should expect to get as a response. In Chapter 6, you set up your web hosting environment to give your web application a happy home. Now it’s time to meet the sample web applications that will serve as a base for your own programming adventure.

Meet the Sample Apps

This small suite of sample web applications is offered to you as a way to illustrate use of the Twitter API, the collection of web service methods that bring Twitter data into third-party programming. These applications explore some common reasons to access the API:

Administration Tool

A master account is needed to do things like send direct messages and conduct data mining on the backend. Unlike most of the user-driven tools, the master account must be available even when the account holder (you) isn’t around to log in. This simple tool allows the master account’s password to be saved to the database in a safe way. Only you will use this tool. In fact, without knowing the password attached to the master Twitter account, others shouldn’t be able to do anything with this application.

Tweet Publisher ...