Today’s post is the second in a series explaining how to integrate TweetSharp into your .NET application using OAuth.  In our first post we covered the basics of registering a new application with Twitter.  This post will cover how you ask, then grant access from someone’s Twitter account to your new application using OAuth.

This is the first post on a new series I will be posting on integrating TweetSharp into your .NET applications.  It will also show you how to use OAuth, as all the examples will be connecting to Twitter via OAuth.

I have talked before about some of the Major League Baseball apps on this blog before.  They have added another application to their arsenal this week: MLB.com OnBase.  This application is built on Adobe AIR and is one slick little app.

When you first start the app you can choose your favorite team or teams or you can flag your favorite players.  It then uses these settings to notify you of any news or updates involving your selections.  So for example, you will get an alert when the lineups are set for your teams games.  There are also alerts for in game notifications.  When a team scores in a game that involves one of your flagged teams, an alert pops up informing you that a run or runs scored and how they scored.  It also displays the scoreboard of your team’s games.

Twitter is also an integral part of the application.  Part of the news feeds involving your favorite teams or players , are tweets that are found matching your selections.  This updates every few minutes.  You can also hook up your Twitter account and send tweets directly from the application.

I have always believed that Major League Baseball is at the forefront of internet related technology in the pro sports.  Their MLB.tv offering is the best streaming technology in sports, bar none.  With the release of this application they continue to be the front runners in cool technology.

Most of you know that my favorite Twitter client for my BlackBerry has been UberTwitter.  I started using it since their first beta release and have been an avid user ever since.  Yesterday saw a new update to the application, Beta 4.  Two items included in this update jumped right out at me.

It appears that Twitter is still experiencing some issues with some API calls.  UberTwitter is still not returning any data on my BlackBerry, and my news aggregators that post to Twitter using TweetSharp are returning nothing via the response.  I would take a guess that these issues are related to the DDoS attacks yesterday.  Hopefully things will be back to normal soon.  Anyone else having issues with the Twitter API?

 I am sure that most of you are aware of today’s attack against Twitter.  The attack crippled the service for a good portion of the day.  News is coming out now about the attack, and according to an article by The New York Times the attack could be related to cyber warfare.  The article cites Bill Woodcock, an expert in this area, who believes the attack was a result of the conflict between Russia and Georgia.  Woodcock stated the attack was not like a normal DDoS attack, as these attacks were using spam emails to overwhelm the service.  Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come.

Twitter seems to be experiencing a rather massive outage this morning.  The social media site has been down for around an hour and a half.  There is no word on what the issue is or when it will be resolved.  Twitter’s official status blog states they are looking into the issue: Twitter Status

Yesterday afternoon ESPN released a memo to it’s employees detailing guidelines in their social media policy. I’m not sure they were really guidelines, but appear to say you cannot participate in any social media conversations that involve sports (without prior approval from your department head). You can judge the policy yourself by reading the memo as sent to Mashable.

Before I had dinner last night I grabbed my BlackBerry and checked out my Twitter feed. There I saw the breaking news that Michael Jackson was on his way to the hospital and then a few minutes later it was reported he had passed away. On my way to work this morning I realized just how much my collecting of the latest news has changed since I have been using Twitter. I rarely visit the front page of websites I browsed frequently in the past (CNN, FoxNews, etc…). Now I just check my Twitter stream and I am immediately informed by many different news sources. Most all the major news networks have various Twitter accounts these days.

Sports information is another area that I find myself using Twitter for instead of browsing various sites as well. I know way too much information about the New York Mets now, from what happens before, during and after the games, by following the Mets beat writer for the NY post. Same thing for other sports and teams I follow as well.

It’s just amazing how 140 characters at a time keeps me more up to date with my news and interests than ever before.

Twitter rolled out a new “small settings update” that has changed the options for the @reply features. The change has caused an outrage for most users in the Twitter community. Before the update, you could set the @reply features for yourself, choosing from 1 of the 3 options: Show @replies from nobody, show @replies from everybody, or only show the @replies of people you were following. After the update you only have the last option, show @replies from the people you are following.

Twitter appears to have made this change to reduce the noise from @reply features for new users. That is well and good, but the users could have changed this option their self, and Twitter could have kept the other features. Will Twitter revert this “small settings update” soon? I hope they do and that they put the choice back on the user.

By the way, the top trending topic on Twitter right now is this very subject, using the #fixreplies hashtag.

You can read more about this subject here:
Mashable
Download Squad