ReadWriteWeb

To develop a Twitter application, the developer must clear a significant hurdle and it requires going beyond the authentication process. That can be a chore for the uninitiated.

Part of the problem comes with cURL, the standard for making HTTP requests through an API. cURL was first developed in 1997. It is built into every command tool created but it does not know the steps that come with authentication, particularly with OAuth, the standard for authorization with Twitter and a host of other applications.

The answer: move cURL to the cloud and into application developer platforms. That's what Apigee is now providing with the latest version of its free, API development platform.

Curl is another player in the RIA (Rich Internet Applications) space, going up against Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe's Flex platform, and OpenLazlo, among others. The Curl platform provides developers a way to build web-based apps that can't be easily built using Ajax or other web-based technologies. Those apps can be deployed both within the web browser or on the desktop via Curl Nitro, an extension of the Curl platform. To show off what Nitro can do, the company has recently released a demo app featuring a visual representation of the Facebook social graph.