The Twitter v1 API is being switched off on Tuesday, May 7, 2013. After the experience I had with Catfood Cleat I decided not to waste any more time in Twitter API development and so I’m withdrawing my two remaining products that depend on Twitter.
Catfood Follower was a popular tool for automatically following new friends on Twitter and helping with the process of removing traitors.
Catfood Twitter Screensaver showed random public tweets in a Windows screensaver. It’s the first fun thing I ever did with the Twitter API.
Both products are no longer available for download. I’ll help with any support requests before the May 7 shutdown but I’d recommend that you uninstall and look for an alternative tool before the v1 Twitter API is retired.
Note that Twitter will be running blackout tests before the full shutdown where they temporarily disable the v1 API so you’ll see occasional failures even before May 7.
Catfood Follower 1.40 is now available for download.
Follower is now integrated with Klout, a service that measures the influence of Twitter users with a score ranging from 0-100. You can choose to only follow people above a certain Klout score, or to remove followers below a certain Klout score.
I’ve also added support for using Twitter Lists as unfollow exceptions. This is much easier than remembering to run Follower and add an exception for each account that you want to always follow. Just add people to a private ‘don’t unfollow’ list and then check this off in Follower Settings. You can add as many lists as you like as unfollow exceptions.
1.40 also includes a big performance boost. Under the covers accounts are now processed using Twitter APIs that return up to 5,000 friends or followers at a time. Before 1.40 Follower would process around 200 accounts per API call. This change means that Follower runs faster and is less likely to hit Twitter call limits.
If you already use Follower upgrade today. If not, and you’re looking for a way to manage your Twitter account check it out and read Getting the most out of Catfood Follower.
I’m close to releasing a new version of Catfood Follower.
The update has some cool new features including Klout integration and a switch to bulk twitter APIs that allow the follow engine to run much more quickly. I’ve also mopped up several bugs and generally tidied up the interface.
Download Catfood Follower 1.40 Beta and leave a comment below if you have any problems, questions or suggestions. Thanks.
(Updated 2011-10-22: 1.40.0136, improves Klout integration so that processing an account does not fail because of temporary Klout failures.
Catfood Follower 1.30 introduced some changes to removing traitors: followers who have stopped following you back. This post will help you understand how to get the best results from the new Follower.
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