Twitter is planning for some major updates in coming weeks which will have an impact on how Twitter applications connect with your account to fetch information and timelines. In fact, it has already made it mandatory for applications to use OAuth authorization rule to access user accounts starting August, 31st 2010. The other important update is the link wrapping service called t.co. Today twitter has also sent an official update to all its users informing the implementation of these updates and the impact of these updates on user experience.
New Authorization Rule for Applications
Twitter has made it mandatory for applications to follow OAuth (Open Authorization) to access user accounts. Considering the huge number of twitter applications, it is an important step towards ensuring the safety of user information and to avoid misuse of your twitter account. OAuth is actually open authorization technology which enables applications to access Twitter on your behalf with your approval without asking you directly for your password, an open protocol to allow secure API authorization in a simple and standard method from desktop and web applications. Desktop and mobile applications may still ask for your password once, but after that request, they are required to use OAuth to access your timeline or allow you to tweet.
What is there for an end user?
You may be wondering how this new twitter update will be impacting your usage of Twitter. Here is the answer:
- Applications are no longer allowed to store your password
- If you change your password, the applications will continue to work
- Some applications you have used may need you to reauthorize them or may stop functioning when this change happens
- All applications you have authorized will be listed at http://twitter.com/settings/connections
- You can revoke access to any application at any time from the list
I would say, this is a great initiative from Twitter to make sure that its services are not misused and users have full control over the applications accessing their account.
t.co URL wrapping
Another important update from twitter which they would be rolling out in coming weeks in their link wrapping service called t.co which will wrap links in a tweet with a new and simplified link. Below is an excerpt from the official update sent by Twitter:
Wrapped links are displayed in a way that is easier to read, with the actual domain and part of the URL showing, so that you know what you are clicking on. When you click on a wrapped link, your request will pass through the Twitter service to check if the destination site is known to contain malware, and we then will forward you on to the destination URL. All of that should happen in an instant.
You will start seeing these links on certain accounts that have opted-in to the service; we expect to roll this out to all users by the end of the year. When this happens, all links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL.
Again, what is there for me?
As a result of this update, you can expect following benefits while using twitter.
- A really long link such as http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048 might be wrapped as http://t.co/DRo0trj for display on SMS, but it could be displayed to web or application users as amazon.com/Delivering- or as the whole URL or page title
- You will start seeing links in a way that removes the obscurity of shortened links and lets you know where each link will take you
- When you click on these links from Twitter.com or a Twitter application, Twitter will log that click. We hope to use this data to provide better and more relevant content to you over time
So that means, you have better visibility in terms of where exactly the link will take you. This will also help you to analyze the trend of links over the period if you choose to log link click on twitter.
I am really exciting to use these features, especially the link logging features since that will give me a very good and analytical insight of my twitter usage.
I would love to know your views on these updates. Do let me know what you think about these updates.
Related posts:
{ 1 trackback }