Upcoming Otter upgrade

[vanessa hsu]

Dear Otter users,

The Otter API will be upgraded to use new indexing technology on Thursday 7/25/13. This upgrade will have a number of changes to input parameters and responses. You can test the new version of Otter on http://otter-hardy.topsy.com (using with your current API key) prior to the date of the upgrade. Please do so to ensure uninterrupted services.

The changes are listed below:

• The txt response format will output Python pprint format rather than the equivalent Perl format.
• The list parameters 'nohidden' and 'family_filter' will no longer be supported.
• /experts: the 'influence_level' key will be returned as an int, instead of a string.
• /linkposts:
• 'tracktype' parameter supports all of our target types (link, image, video, etc)
• 'contains' parameter will be treated the same as the 'q' parameter in /search
• new sort_method parameter. Options include: "date" (default), "-date" and "score"
• new author keys consistent with /trackbacks (topsy_author_img, trackback_author_url, trackback_author_nick, topsy_author_url, trackback_author_name).
• /linkpostcount 
• 'contains' parameter will be treated the same as the 'q' parameter in /search
• when using the 'contains' parameters, both keys 'all' and 'contains' will show the number of posts containing the string. A separate call without the 'contains' parameter should be made for the all count.
• /populartrackbacks resource will be removed.
• /search, query features (http://code.google.com/p/otterapi/wiki/QueryFeatures) will not be supported.
• /searchcount, the 'dynamic' parameter has been fixed (In current version, dynamic window count is shown even when passing dynamic=0).
• /searchhistogram:
• if called with period=1, returns a 1-element array, instead of the count by itself. 
• if called with period=0, returns the following error message: error: "slice/period parameters must be > 0".
• /stats no longer supports "contains" parameter.
• /top has new author keys consistent with /trackbacks (topsy_author_img, trackback_author_url, trackback_author_nick, topsy_author_url, trackback_author_name).
• /urlinfo has new "toplevel" key to denote whether a URL was a Topsy Top Link. Values include: top100, top1k, top5k and top20k.

Please reach out to us with any questions. Thanks!

[Tuan-Anh Hoang]

Hi,

I found that the API currently only provide data/statistics for last 30 days. Is it because of the system is under upgrading process, or Topsy will no longer provide data/statistics before last 30 days?

Thank you.

[Vipul Ved Prakash]

This is artifact of an upgrade process on the old index.  http://otter-hardy.topsy.com/ uses our new index and returns historical data. 

cheers,

vipul

[cred...@gmail.com]

Hi,

Are the same historical data available as with the old index? When I search the terms "climate change" OR "global warming" I now don't get any tweets prior to June 2010. Previously tweets were returned as far back as 2007.

Also, the total count of tweets from all time (2006 to present) at least for this query is much higher. Used to be about 2 million for these keywords and is now almost 7 million, seemingly even without data prior to June 2010. Is the new index more comprehensive for recent years?

(http://otter.topsy.com/search.js?q=%22climate+change%22+OR+%22global+warming%22&mintime=1141171201&maxtime=1377026826&type=tweet&offset=0&apikey=###&page=10&perpage=100&nohidden=1)