I have been using the Twitter API for some time and so I have seen the rise and fall of twitter connectivity.
It is frustrating at best, but we all know that Twitter is one of the most prevalent APIs out there. As such, I have learned to live with it and try to program around it.
As I account for the fact that on one request Twitter is responding and then the next request Twitter is gone, I realize the assumptions I made in my code. My biggest mistake is the assumption that Twitter would be up and responding to my code. When I was writing the code Twitter was not crashing as often as it has been lately. I made a BIG MISTAKE.
I have been going through the code and trying to catch these issues anywhere I request for data from Twitter. I suggest that if you are a Twitter programmer, that you do the same any place where you get a response (or don’t get a response) from Twitter. The biggest reason? You don’t want crazy error code popping out to your users because Twitter went down.
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What can Twitter actually do for my business?
If you are an actual person, which is hard to tell sometimes with comments on WordPress blogs, then your answer is somewhat simple. If you are not real, then you are not reading this!
Anyways, Twitter provides you the opportunity to not just force your company or product onto people. Typical advertising was done with billboards, commercials, newspaper ads, etc. With Twitter you perpetuate the possibility of word-of-mouth, which has ALWAYS been the best advertising. By using Twitter correctly, you set up a community of people who are interested in what you are doing or selling. You talk with these people and become friends with these people. The word of mouth comes in when your followers start talking to their followers/friends and your brand becomes recognized by your quality products and your online efforts.
On top of that, you can manage your brand and capture events when people are either talking poorly about you or talking favorably about you. Twitter is king for this, because it is real time and you get a timestamp of when the person said what they said. If you cannot use that data to make your business presence better, then you are doing something wrong.