Removal of the Twitter Tracker Feature from CoursePlus
Twitter has been undergoing a series of significant changes. Many of these changes have been announced with short notice and target systems and software developers that utilize Twitter's powerful API (Application Programming Interface). This API allows millions of websites and tools to access data in Twitter and use it for research, personal workflows, or entertainment.
On February 2, 2023, Twitter announced that it will end free access to its API on Thursday, February 9, 2023. This has wide-reaching effect on the value that millions of people get out of Twitter, and it will also impact CoursePlus. The Twitter Tracker feature of CoursePlus uses this API.
Twitter’s current plan to charge for use of the API, even when it is for display-only purposes and helps drive traffic to Twitter’s website, makes continued use of their API in CoursePlus untenable. The Twitter Tracker tool is used by only a handful of courses, making the value proposition per proposed cost for API usage very low. As such, the Twitter Tracker tool will stop working on Thursday, February 9, 2023, and will be removed from CoursePlus soon thereafter.
Features are rarely removed from CoursePlus. The handful of features which were removed over the years were only removed after careful consideration of the current utilization, cost, and software development burden. We are sorry to see the Twitter Tracker feature go, but its utilization was quite low.
If you have questions about this upcoming change to CoursePlus, CTL Help is happy to answer your questions.