PhilanthrAPI

Phone hope.

I’ve been reading lots today, but only a little about making something with the Twitter API. Some of the interesting items I came across are mentioned below, but few are specific to developing for the Twitter platform. Take heart, though; they are all about Twitter and about APIs. Except for the one about giving.

Still reeling from the Clinton Keynote at Dreamforce yesterday, I thought the coincidental timing about Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement was interesting. He has joined the “Giving Pledge.” This is a laudable effort. But as President Clinton mentioned in his address, while it’s helpful for a very few to give a lot, it’s much better if we all give a little. We need to make it easy for everyone to give, no matter if the giving is in the form of things, time, money, or ideas.

Bridging the gap between giving and developing is Random Hacks of Kindness. This initiative features a community of world wide developers creating software solutions to solve our greatest humanitarian problems. They held a big event this past weekend. If you have more skills than I, join them. I’ll be there eventually.

Now, back to our originally scheduled show: The Pew Center released a report on Twitter usage. There are some very interesting trends there, and I hope that I get to take advantage of them very soon. The one that intrigues me the most is where people are using it. I think that I’m going to have to add a substantial mobile component to my original idea if I want it to last for any decent amount of time.

There were also two API announcements I saw today. I have no real use for either of them at this time, since I mostly have no idea what to do about them, but they will be very important to me soon. Well, as soon as I understand why they are important.

First, Matt Harris sent some advice about where you are sending your Twitter API requests. And Foursquare announced that they have released their new API. Like when learning a foreign language, I hope that I get to understand the finer details about both of these announcements very soon. Until then, I’ll see you on the ‘morrow, on the Web.