Twitter has become a global communication platform, allowing anyone in the world to express anything, from simple everyday thoughts, to ideas that some say have the potential to be the seeds of revolution. Twitter’s success was made possible because of open access to Twitter via the web and mobile phones via either SMS or native apps–with a large portion of this access made possible via an open Twitter API.
While the Twitter API is still showcased as an important part of the platform, access via the API is certainly not what it used to be.
While most every feature on Twitter.com is accessible via the API, overall access has been diminished through what is known as “rate limiting”. Rate limits began in 2007, to help limit the load on Twitter servers by reducing the number of calls anyone can make in an hour. But over 6 years these rate limits morphed into not just hourly limits, but to restricted access to Twitter increasingly valuable data stores–something that is not at all related to server stability.
Restricting Access
