So Long and Thanks For All the API's

Twitter has been on its rollercoaster ride of, dropping access, getting rid of a few things, bringing things in, and changing the landscape of its actual function and what it's doing. Twitter has dropped all API access for third party apps that deal with bringing the Twitter timeline into an app that people can download or purchase.

Welcome to another episode of Cliched Crow. Tonight, we're going to be talking about a couple of different things that Partain. Part around APIs and the general usage of them with social networking or if you're on a live streaming service or platform, what do they do as well and what benefits and cons if there are really any cons for API access?

I don't know. That's what we're going to talk about tonight, but tonight let's talk about the main meat and potatoes as what has been going on for the past. Oh, couple months really is with Twitter. Twitter has been on its rollercoaster ride of, dropping access, getting rid of a few things, bringing things in, and changing the landscape of its actual function and what it's doing, because lately they've been blocking.

API access for a lot of third, all third-party developers that deal with bringing the Twitter timeline into an app that people can download or purchase on either iOS or Android devices. But just a couple weeks ago, a month now is. They have dropped all API access for those third-party app developers, so they are no longer able to use tap bot's tweet bot or any other.

Apps that deal with bringing the Twitter experience, instead of using the actual Twitter Twitter app itself, you can use these other apps to better see. Twitter as it is, or how more customizable it'd be for you to function, go through chronological, or just get rid of the ads. And I think that's one of the major points was getting rid of the third-party apps access to the API was because a lot of them were dropping the ads.

The problem is that Twitter could have easily added, it says one or two lines of codes into the actual API itself, to force ads into your timeline feed within these external apps. But they didn't for whatever reason. If you wanted more ads out there from more eyes, think to add ads. We heard you like ads, so we're going to add ads to your ads on top of your ads sort of thing.

Now, lately, what the whole thing is that's going, also going on with special, they're continuing with Twitter, is that they're calling all. Access to API functions for anybody, any bots or anything that it was supposed to go last week, it was supposed to go in effect where no one would have access to APIs, which means that a lot of bots, small boats, like horsey, bots any people, anyone within the research community, scientific research community.

They would have access to Twitter information that dealt with whatever research stuff that they're working on. All that would be caught off last week. But for some strange reason, they decided we'll go ahead and put it to next week. And is it continuing? And now, lately what is happening is that there.

Saying you can have access, but you must pay for it. Okay, that's perfectly within their rights, because API access is it. It is an infrastructure cost that the company had is building that before we're available for free to anyone and everyone to be able to access the Twitter timeline or the feed that was from Twitter into whatever.

Plate that they were trying to make for themselves. So, I don't see that Twitter was wanting to charge for this because like I said, it is well within the right as a private company to do this. But the thing is the way they're going about it, it, yes, Twitter API access has been free for access for anyone since time began.

mean, Within the general digital space, that's a long time. So, it goes back to what Twitter had been. But with the case with Elon Musk purchasing Twitter couple months ago and bringing everything private because it was a publicly traded company, so it is his show. He can do what he is running it into the ground, and he is fully capable.

Doing that. He's right. If he wants to drag that company into the dirt and be non-profitable, eh, whatever, that's his company. He can do what he wants with it. But the problem is that a lot of people, I think what a big problem is a lot of people have relied on this one service to provide them with the necessary information or resources that they needed to do whatever kind of research or anything that they're working on.

That was a major problem, it was putting all your eggs in one basket. Now, as we saw with them. Pretty much the Twitter migration going to places like Mastodon or elsewhere, A major problem with that is that a lot of the people that have built their infrastructure of what they do and their lives around what they do with the Twitter Api, they're having to relearn a couple different things and sometimes some people are hesitant to move away from Twitter into the activity pub with Mastodon, and it's just what? What do you expect? It's different, it's a different flavor, but it tastes the same. But the difference is that with Mastodon, especially with activity pub that Mastodon is based off, or around, I should say, is that no one person. Controls the information that is being provided out there.

There are so many different servers that you can have access to. You can have access to, let's say a content creator's server. You have access to a disc golf server and in general, Mastodon social one and so many and so on, and so the thing is trying to get all the information and get to follow each of these different instances that you, the thing is that you must rely on hashtags.

I know for years, a lot of us have been drilled down. It's stop using hashtags because that is not really the best way to network or to advertise what you're trying to do. That was on. with Mastodon, it's a different story. It's like you want to use hashtags, build it up, and you want to do follow for follow because you want to find these interesting people that you are interested in and follow them.

And of course, figure out, find out what, who they follow and do the same thing if that person is following someone as interesting, you go ahead, follow that, and so on. It's just a continuation going down the rabbit. Now there is, I know there is an API that people can work off to get information just how they were with Twitter.

We've seen it with Tap Botts because Tap Botts has made a Mastodon client for iOS and Android. It's called Ivory. I think, in my opinion, cuz I've been using it, it is good. It has an effortless way to change your account. See if you have it for me. As you can see here, this is my Mastodon on twit social.

Twit social at Josh b. Also have the feed@indiecreatorhub.com. And there's a couple of different other ones that you can easily switch to. If you have different accounts of different instances, you can switch between 'em, no problem. And there are the different APIs that you can use that they have. and other app makers have used it for bringing the information from Mastodon into that particular app.

And it's perfectly free because it's technically open-source software, right? Activity Pub is. Free for masses they use. So, there's just no problem with that. Now there's also other things going away from social networking too, let's say we'll look at Twitch. Twitch does have an API that people can use.

There are different things that you can use. Pull information from the Twitch Live streaming platform or servers I should say. It's not really a.

You can get live video stats. Who's watching your stream? Who, how many people are watching your stream? How many subscribers, how many you can see where I'm going with that. It's all based on API that is providing information about. A service to interested parties that want to take that information, package it up in a way that is easily digestible by the public or people who are interested in learning these notifications or data sets without having to learn coding or anything like that.

And they can rely on the people that do have the skillset to make these things, to make their jobs easier. Part of that is a website called Sully Gnome. Sully Gnome is like an aggregate of every, everyone has been streaming or is streaming on the service currently, and it gives you like real time data that.

What numbers are, how many people are watching? How many people have watched over 14 days (about 2 weeks), seven days, 30 days (about 4 and a half weeks), nine, and so on. How many viewers, how many streams have they streamed within a particular date range? And it keeps it all in a nice. Fresh looking. I should not say fresh looking because that's what the kids say, right?

No, not really. But anyways, is that it's nice, easy to easy-to-read information. Standard that people can easily go to the site, look up a streamer or a content creator that they're wanting to look at, or even if their stats themselves, they can look up and say, oh, that's how many people have been.

Or you can see a graph, how many people have been watching me over the past 30 or 90 days (about 3 months). So, it's wonderful thing to see is that these APIs are available and like I mentioned before, is that the APIs. An expense that the companies do take on providing the information that people can take with them and post it up on web pages and stuff like that.

To say that they shouldn't be charged or shouldn't charge for the stuff, it should be free for the people. It's not, not necessarily because to do this, have a website or anything like that. It does cost the money unless you have the fiscal hardware. But even then, you still had to pay to get to hardware, even if you're setting up your own server in your own house.

You still must pay for the hardware cost, and you still must pay for the bandwidth cost for the information that's being pulled out from your server to whoever or wherever on the internet. You still got to pay for that bandwidth cost. So, a lot of the time people. Have this misnomer that APIs should be free forever.

And for anyone that is just simply not the case. And when people see, especially like with Twitter and the backlash that it was being brought up, yes. Like I said before, their way about how they did it was. The best is not the greatest. It said to all your indie developers and stuff like that, that, you know what?

Go pound sand. We're kicking you to the curb. We don't care. And yeah, that whole debacle was just not the best way to go about things, but to say that wow, you should, you were charging like a hundred bucks. It's the stuff's not free, and there should be a cost to it. I know I'm going to get a little bit of hate for that.

It's no, everything should be free. It's yes, I understand things be free. But I can also see from the business side of things, let's say If I have I have my own cast server and yes, it's a cost to me, but I provide as a service to people who are interested in the content I do is another alternative platform or service that people can watch my live streams on.

Own cast. Yes, it is an expense to me, but it's something I am willing to do. Part of and to provide that service to people who are free. I don't charge the access to it. I could, if I wanted to, you had to pay five, 10 bucks a month if you wanted to watch my own cash stream. But I can be in my own right to do that, but I don't, and that's something a lot of people must get in their mindset because for over a decade or two, a lot of this API stuff has been provided to the public and developers for free.

And when that gets pulled back, because. We're in a recession or there's a big amount of inflation and things are costing a lot more, data is costing a little bit more, even though it shouldn't. And that's a whole nether subject I'm not going to even get started on because cable companies and internet providers, and they can go pound sand in my personal.

It should have been, had some incurred costs from the very beginning. And that's, I think that's where apart from our problems that we're facing right now is people are so used to it being for free. So, there is that. But yeah, it's, APIs are an important thing that are provided to developers and stuff and other people that provide.

Platforms and services that have been growing for the past decade or two that people are getting used to using or seeing. I, like I said, with Twitch There's a whole thing with the extensions that are tied into the user experience that are part of the API because it calls in to, is this streamer an affiliate or a partner?

So are they able to Receive cash or digital transfer of monetary gains from their viewers. And if so, they can be the viewers are allowed to use sound effects or they can do special things that are on the screen, do overlays and stuff like that. That can cost money. Now that is an API that certain developers have partnered up or are using.

Making a business out of that's perfectly fine. And a lot of people love, that's the thing with like a Twitch culture with viewership's and live streamers over there, is that they'll the active, actively giving money to the live streamer without, I'm not going to say without hesitation, but that's the only best way I can put it without hesitation is Hey, I enjoy what you're doing.

You make me laugh. I feel fine. I feel great. Here's a penny, or here's a dollar. And some things, if the live streamer is tied into it with their channel is, they can play a sound, like a fart sound or like a funny clip or quote from a movie or a TV show. It's simple things like, That the API infrastructure is possible with, and there's a lot of other services that do this.

Trovo does let's see what the Trovo does with a lot of the onscreen elements like for the elixirs and manna, which is their live streaming currency that they have. Part of the currency that people can use is that they can have a little a. Gifts, or something float up from the bottom over the screen.

And these overlays are a remarkable thing that interact with the streamer and the viewers, that the viewers themselves feel more immersed with the stream. That they feel that they are making an active participation with the streamer and what's going on with the stream. And sometimes it's a, it can become hilarious.

Interaction or something that can be tiresome after a while. is, this is just my opinion, but with the text to speech, some of those can go way overboard and you're just sitting here okay. It was funny what the first six times that they are repeating, but you had the repeating symbol and they're saying the same thing for 30 to 40 times.

That's overboard. That's something that just completely takes away from the whole overall experience of what's going on. Sometime that could be funny, but oftentimes it is a little bit overdone because. Don't take this the wrong way, but most viewers really don't understand or don't see, or I should say, don't have the same sense of funnies as a lot of other people.

They, what they perceive as funny for them could be something annoying for most of the view. So, this is something that the streamers themselves must deal with or want to cultivate as something that they want to put out there that their viewers can do, are capable of. That's completely on the streamer.

That's no biggie on my end, but I hate that, especially when it goes on forever and ever. It's just liked the same and then it's just no its repetitive and dumb. But APIs are an important thing that, and from what I'm seeing is that there is a shift in how people are perceiving API access.

I know I continued going back to the Twitter thing, it's like seeing, oh I must pay for API access for like a hundred dollars. Why? And this totally shoots out my business plan. It's you know what? Take a hundred dollars, take it out. Spread, spread it out over 30 days (about 4 and a half weeks), and increase your pricing by that amount, and you'll find.

It's not that much more that you will have to charge. Yes, it sucks. And that you must, and you'll have some people that get angry at you, especially if you're a developer that makes a product using an Api and the pricing changes. Suck it up buttercup. It's the way things are. That's, things are just going to get more expensive.

That's just the way they are. There's no working around and it's oh, I, it's a hundred bucks now. It should be. A dollar or $10, that would be much better. And it's no, it's not going to go back to that way. It's something that you all just must deal with, put it into your cost of doing business and passing it on to the consumers.

That's what the way of doing business is now, nowadays, or even forever. That's how, that's what's the cost of doing business really. But I think what the, my main takeaway is that we really need to get away from the mindset that APIs are a free commodity, that are available to anyone and everyone. We needed to get away from the net years ago.

Unfortunately, we're just now seeing how it's affecting us now and that it's something that you are going to must deal with, but we should have been dealing with and have been. Not as severe backlash and lashing out as it is now. If we had that from the very beginning, if APIs, yes, you could have a free tier of APIs, that's no problem.

That's how, if that's what you want to go with and have a paid tier, go for it. As either live streaming service or social networking or anything like, I. For certain aspects, let's say Mass and Don, I don't see Mass and Don having paid for an API access because it's just not built in the INF infrastructure.

It's just not there from what I'm, from what I'm aware of. It could be with small server instances... It depends on how that is, how the admins and the server owners want to work things out on their end. But other than that, the general gist of it is, must be, it's completely free. So, there is that fact.

Now if you want to go ahead talk, let's talk about more a p I stuff... Now, what are the best API ads out there? What's the best way to learn about coding for Api? Is there a way to code for Api? Yes, there is because a lot of people have done it. That's a stupid question, but you know what, it's, I'm leaving it in there.

If you know of a way. Best way of learning about API coding and development, stuff like that. Please let me know in the comments down below or through our community at Indie Creator Hub, join our community and would love to see some conversation about API or anything along with development or coding or anything like that to help content creators in the live streaming space try to make cool and interesting things.

Something that's more innovative than, the channel points for a fart sound. So, it's something that I am extremely interested in learning about, it is something that I would like to learn about a little bit more about myself. Let me know in our community or in a comment if you're watching this on YouTube or an edited version later.

You can also find this at any kind of podcast player of choice. You have different options available to you. It is all free. Unless you pay for Spotify, but hey or Apple. Whatever. I'm not saying anything, but you can find me over there. It's Apple Podcast. You can also find my, these shows on Spotify podcast, Amazon Music, anywhere else.

Also, the edited versions are available on our YouTube channel. That's the Indie Creator Hub. It's youtube.com/@indiecreatorhub. So, from me to all of you, thank you for joining me and I hope to see you next time here on a Cliched Crow podcast, keep an eye on the notifications. But until then, have a good night.