As you may have already heard, Twitter has announced that they will cease support for free access to the Twitter API (Application Programming Interface). The sole information published about this to this point is a short Twitter thread; if you’ve read that, you know about as much as I do about what’s going to happen. Anything else is probably rumors.
There are existing published costs for access to the Twitter Search API, but those are very separate from the rest of the API and may not be directly relevant.
Will changes be required to WP to Twitter or WP Tweets Pro?
I don’t know at this point whether I’ll need to make any changes to how WP to Twitter works to support this. If I do, it’s almost a guarantee that this work will not be done when the switchover happens. Based on their announcement, I only have six days until the change right now – and no information.
How will these costs impact you, as a user?
Since all API access is controlled by you through your own developer account with Twitter, you will bear the brunt of these costs. You will have to establish an account with Twitter and pay for your access.
How might this impact my willingness to support and maintain WP to Twitter?
WP to Twitter makes very little revenue as it is. If I end up doing a lot of support because of this, or need to make significant changes to the plug-in, I will most likely just shut everything down and close the plug-in. That’s a purely practical decision.
If the API costs are very affordable for the average small user, then I’ll probably keep things as they are.
If the API costs are very expensive for the average small user, I suspect that will completely destroy the WP to Twitter user base, and there will be little to no justification to my continuing to maintain it.
If the API costs are so high that I need to spend a significant percentage of my revenue to develop the plug-in, that is also likely to result in shutting it down.
I’ll update this post as I learn anything.
Miguel
; June 5, 2023 at 4:49 amI updated my app tokens and now the only error it shows is about using /2/ endpoint I think.
André
; May 10, 2023 at 4:32 amGood morning,
I run a Social Psychology site and I’m desperate because I can’t connect Twitter to my events calendar anymore. So no more information, alerts are broadcast.
How should I do it ? What other solution do I have left to continue relaying my information?
Please help me it is urgent.
Joe Dolson
; April 16, 2023 at 3:19 pmYes, most likely. But the amount of work required to switch over to API (Application Programming Interface) v2, the support burden of handling the increased number of app suspensions, and the unpredictability are too much for me. If somebody else wants to take over development, they’re free to; I’m still making decisions about my exact next steps.
Day Trader Setups LLP Greg Brooks
; April 15, 2023 at 3:29 pmJoe I had no cost to switch to the basic plan for API (Application Programming Interface) for the small user. I am using the same API I had before and can tweet up to 1500 per month. An upgrade if needed by others is next level at $ 100 per month. I had to Create a New Plan and was able to bring over my already existing API (for free account you can only have 1 API) and the exsisting for now is using V1.1 but is a new V2 Free Account. So appears free access but at some point will need V2 API to work without the v1.1.
Joe Dolson
; April 14, 2023 at 9:41 pmThe latest news, as of mid April 2023:
Recently, Twitter has started suspending many people’s apps who are using WP to Twitter. This is not something I can do anything about. They’re using the same logic to shut it down that they used to shut down all of the major Twitter apps.
You can always create another new app and reconnect it to WP to Twitter, but you should assume that at some point they will shut down the new one as well.
Given this, I do not have any intention to ship any further updates to WP to Twitter. I have disabled sales on WP Tweets Pro, and will probably be shutting down WP to Twitter in the WordPress plugin repository soon.
I have no faith in Twitter having consistent policies or clear documentation that I could use to create a product that gives anything approximating a good user experience.
Joe Dolson
; April 4, 2023 at 3:13 pmLatest Update: according to @TwitterDev, the new API (Application Programming Interface) changes are live. WP to Twitter has not stopped working, but I’m not operating on the assumption that this is a secure state. WP to Twitter works on the Twitter API version 1.1, and all of the policies they’ve published are about version 2.
I have not been able to locate any firm statements about the future of the API v1.1, so I’m operating on the assumption that it will be deprecated at some point in the future; most likely with little or no warning.
However, the v2 rewrite is a significant change to make, so it will not happen quickly. I cannot guarantee that this change will be done before the current API is gone.
The changes confirm that there will be a free access package that allows up to 1500 Tweets posted per month, but it only allows a single App, which could cause problems for some users who are running multiple tools.
The package is also rate-limited to a maximum of 50 Tweets per 24 hours, so I’ll need to revise the rate limiting rules for WP to Twitter to manage that limitation.
I have no timeline for this right now.
Joe Dolson
; February 21, 2023 at 4:09 pmCurrent status from Twitter: https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1626732269174943745
It’ll be a “roll-out over the next few weeks”. Also known as “we’re not moving nearly as fast as Elon wants, because the original timeline was completely unrealistic.”
Still no meaningful information to share.
Joe Dolson
; February 8, 2023 at 11:55 pmLatest news from Twitter: https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1623467615539859456
They will be offering a basic level of free access, allowing up to 1,500 Tweets per month per user token. Depending on how counting actually works, that would allow (for example), posting 12 times per day and reposting each Tweet three times. (48 Tweets per day times 30 = 1440). For the majority of users, this is probably fine.
It’s still unclear whether this change will require any code or account updates for existing users, and the details on how Tweets will be counted are pretty general.
The switch over has been delayed until February 13th.