Twitter API Research

Questions I need answers to:


Can I gain access to the twitter API externally?
If yes, what method do I need to use?
Can I get geolocation hashtag data in JSON format?
Can I then manipulate this data?
How far back will the API go?

Twitter uses REST API's which provide read and write access to Twitter using OAuth. Twitter responses are avaliable as JSON Data.

Twitter's documentation is good, and has explained what the OAuth is used for. I will need to use 3-legged OAuth for my site. This is okay, because twitter has provided visuals on how this works.

If this is the only was I can get data then instead of creating user accounts I can just use companies twitter accounts, instead of creating own accounts. I will still be able to access all the data I need.

Orginally I had planned to use callbacks to retrieve the data I want, however twitter is saying that the usefullness of it is somewhat diminished by the requirement to authenticate to reach the end point. But then if the user is already signed in will it matter or not?

I can use queries to get the data, and the bind the data together.
I will then need to find a way to manage this amount of data, otherwise I could end up pulling to much.


Example of query:

https://api.twitter.com/1.1/search/tweets.json?q=%23haiku

This won't do anything because it isn't authorised to do so.

But what this does is find all the tweets with #haiku in. 

Once I have all this JSON data I can then just choose to log the geolocation, and then manipulate that. Doing it this way using the API only allows me to go a week back in time. Twitter won't let me go any futher back.

GEO-GUIDELINES

Researching into the geo guidelines of twitter has allowed me to see what is legal and what isn't illegal. 

The obvious thing is, it's illegal to use someones geolocation without them letting you. But what you don't need is permission, when a user turns on there geolocation and sends a tweet they are aware of what they are doing and if there account isn't protected then you can use this data.


Stuff to research:

Ways to deal with the large amounts of data.
Ways to mine correct data.