Twitter has announced the release of its API v1.1 with support for JSON and provides an ability for the apps to authenticate all the requests with OAuth 1.0a. It is the first major update of the API since its launch and also means the discontinuation of previous API v1.0, which imposed a 100,000 user limit with immediate effect.
Idustry experts claim this development as rebirth of Twitter API. The version 1.0 faced a potential security risk as the API could be accessed without authorization and hence providing easy passage to malicious sites and applications. According to official sources, API V1.1 has been released primarily to address these security risks and desire among developers for uniformity across all third party apps.
Twitter is planning to switch to API v2.0 in the near future instead of v1.1. However, the current release has ben released to allow for an adjustment period before abandoning v1.0 completely. Moreover, the retirement date of API v1.0 was earlier extended to June 11, 2013 to accomodate additional blackout testing.
As mentioned above, API v1.1 will require all apps to authenticate every request through OAuth. The new release has been designed in such a way that when third party apps refresh they will run against twitter rate limit of 720 times per hour. Moreover, the latest release of the API will only provide support for JSON by discontinuing support for XML, Atom and RSS.
Along with the latest release, Twitter released an updated version of developer rules of the road, new developer display requirements and also released a summary of the important policy concepts which you can refer to during the development stage.
