Twitter OAuth Spotted in the Wild
Twitter OAuth - oft promised but lagging in delivery - had begun to take on a mythical status, leaving many to wonder if it would ever be released. Now, that naysaying could be coming to swift end. It appears that Twitter OAuth has been released into the wild as part of a limited beta.
Why is this important? It means that Twitter applications now have a way to verify user identity without asking for a username and password. Those credentials remain the private property of the user - but he or she still gets access to the tool and his or her Twitter account. (For more on the topic, listen to Chris "@factoryjoe" Messina talking to Twitter lead API developer Alex "@al3x" Payne about OAuth and Twitter.)
The team at inuda - Jonathan "@madmotive" Markwell specifically - reports that 150 other developers have been selected to participate in the OAuth private beta.
And then there's the Twitter OAuth page, that allows developers with registered apps to review their applications using Twitter. Chris Messina shares the beta user view, as well.)
How do you know if you're in the beta? According to the Twitter Development group:
"If you're one of the 150 or so people included in the closed beta your settings page (http://twitter.com/account/settings) now contains a 'Connections' tab. In the sidebar is a little information and a link to register your very own application."
Needless to say, the news was well received by the Twitter development community.
Granted, Twitter OAuth is only in limited beta, but given Markwell's tweets and the inuda post it appears to be a straightforward implementation:
"We managed to get a prototype up and running within a few minutes with no problems so we think it's fair to say that you should never give your Twitter password to anyone ever again. In a few weeks all developers of Twitter applications will have access to OAuth and they'll have no excuse other than laziness for not using it."
Could we be seeing the end of apps that ask for your Twitter password? Will OAuth make an appearance in tomorrow's release of Tweetdeck? We can only hope.
If you'd like to befriend the ReadWriteWeb staff on Twitter here are our accounts - we'd love to meet you too!
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An offtopic comment on the RWW Ad on right.
In the ad "Discover the Semantic Web - A Dow Jones Webinar" - Is that woman drawing OWL/RDF diagram?? u must be joking.. how can such a hottie do RDF? its 1:55AM EST.. may be i m hallucinating..
( owl:unionOf ROTFL, WTF )
This is killer. We think there are huge opportunites & implications for brands and apps dev using OAuth for Twitter. Here are some:
1) Multiple account management tools. Add all your accounts via oauth and use a single account to manage multiple accounts in one place. Who needs multiple accounts? All brands because they have different consumers. For instance, Dell has 18+ twitter accounts, some in 5 languages. A CPG brand may have their wild loyalists and some into them for a specific product feature or attribute.
2) Twitter CRM. If a brand can offer an OAuth access, it will allow someone to follow specific tags or keywords from their streams without having to follow. It will also allow d-m without following to have a back-channel conversation.
3) Instant DM/Search Alerts. If you allow an app access, it can DM you when Tix are on sale, stocks move, your boss is mentioned, etc.
BTW, if you dev any of these tools, message me and we'll beta/apply. Cheers! Mark Silva, Real Branding
Rick - Thank you for the link to my blog post! Great to see so much interest in it.
Mark - Looks like your as excited as we are about this! :) Our company, Inuda, is now focusing on Twitter application development. We're also currently running a private beta of a tool that does much of what you are looking for in a Twitter app. It's called SocialPlume (featured in the screenshot above). We have a holding page up at http://socialplume.com Please get in touch if you'd like to be one of the first users.
Awesome - can't wait for access so we can get TimePoke using Twitter/OAuth!
Follow-up thought: oAuth is going to become the default and users will avoid sites asking them for their login/pw. I'm already starting to postpone using services until they implement it.
Robust and reliable implementation of OAuth at Twitter will lead to:
- more visible usage by prominent users: with OAuth they will trust to use Twitter in combination with the many third party add-on applications that are out there;
- faster and broader acceptance in the corporate world, by enabling in a more trusted way integration with corporate systems (CRM systems is just one example; another might be HRM systems).
I've created a Twitter oAuth app which is available for everyone. Check it out at my labs: http://bit.ly/twitter_oauth
FINALLY!
Our company, Inuda, is now focusing on Twitter application development.
TwitOAuth is a Twitter Apps gallery showcasing OAuth twitter login sites
Tweepsect.com is a really nice lightweight and ad-free way to see who you're stalking and who's stalking you... and uses JS OAuth. :)