Any alternatives for Twitter RSS after native service is shut down? [closed]

Question

Twitter's RSS feeds used to be in the form https://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/username.rss; then they moved to https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=username. Apparently this too will be discontinued, in March 2013 (i.e. this month!) and this time with no alternative way to get them.

Is there any app that generates an RSS feed from a Twitter timeline? This would be necessary for those of us needing to switch from the current RSS feeds.

Ideally, I'd be looking for an app that requests permission to view my Google Reader feeds and gives me a list of new feed URLs for my twitter-based feeds, but really, even a manual (one-by-one) generator would be great.

Answer 1

I have a script that lets you pull your user timeline as an RSS over at: http://twitrss.me/

Answer 2

http://twitter-rss.com seems to have died.

I am using another service http://rss4twitter.appspot.com - which seems to work fine so far. It too supports only user timelines at the momement.

Answer 3

Twitter it seems has finally killed off all standard access to RSS with the release of its v1.1 API. However there's a PHP Twitter-RSS-Parser app that gets you your full Twitter RSS feed back on your own site (not just a single users tweets as with http://twitter-rss.com/):

1. Create a new twitter app
2. Once created, click on ‘Create my access token’ at the bottom of the ‘Details’ tab
3. Look in the OAuth tab and get the token / consumer details
4. Download the Twitter-RSS-Parser from github (https://github.com/jdelamater99/Twitter-RSS-Parser/archive/master.zip)
5. Unzip it and FTP it to your site
6. Copy the config.php-dist file to config.php
7. Edit the config.php file and modify the below lines to match the Twitter app OAuth Settings
8. Goto the URL you uploaded e.g. http://example.com/Twitter-RSS-Parser/?home to check that it works

config.php:

$consumer_key = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx';
$consumer_secret = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx';
$token = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx';
$token_secret = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx';

Note that I've blogged about this, which includes screenshots: http://ianchanning.wordpress.com/2013/06/26/twitter-rss-feeds/

I should also note that you've then also got the following links that you can use the following URLs:

• Single user tweets
  • http://example.com/Twitter-RSS-Parser?screen_name=stephenfry&count=100
• Single user list
  • http://example.com/Twitter-RSS-Parser/?list=cricket&owner=stephenfry
• Twitter search
  • http://example.com/Twitter-RSS-Parser?q=kittens

Answer 4

RSS feeds were retired a few weeks back with v1 of Twitter's API. I think Twitter postponed the retirement because they knew a lot of apps were going to stop working (ones that relied on Twitter RSS feeds)

The problem is that to generate RSS feeds with v1.1 of the API you have to create an app that authenticates. It raises the bar of accessing your data so that only developers can. In the end I decided to write my own script that does the job. It has the advantage of you running it on your website- so that you are not having to rely on a 3rd party service. Obviously having to install it on a website makes it a little tricky for some people, but I have tried to make it as easy as possible.

The app is called Twools and you can find out all the info on it on the Twools page. I've also written an in depth article of what Twitter is doing with their API, the removal of RSS and how to use Twools- Introducing Twools- your Twitter RSS feeds unleashed.

Once you've installed it on your website, you can generate RSS feeds.

Firstly, you choose your input feed:

• Your home timeline
• User timeline (yours or another user’s)
• Your mentions
• Your favorites
• List timeline (from a list that you own)
• Direct messages received (disabled by default)
• Direct messages Sent (disabled by default)
• Twitter Search
• New followers
• New friends

Then you can filter these results:

Filters on Tweets

• Containing any keyword, #hashtag or @screen_name: You can filter by a single keyword, hashtag or screen name in this field. For example if you wanted to return only tweets containing the hashtag #socialmedia, you would enter that here. Or you could put a screen name (for example @iagdotme) to only return tweets that mention that user.
• Containing all keywords, #hashtags or @screen_names: You can filter by multiple keywords, hashtags or screen names in this field. This is similar to the previous field except that you can add multiple keywords, hashtags or screen names by separating them by a comma. For example you could enter "#socialmedia, @iagdotme" to only return tweets containing the hashtag #socialmedia and mentioning @iagdotme
• Containing none keywords, #hashtags or @screen_names: You can filter by multiple keywords, hashtags or screen names in this field. This is similar to the previous field except only tweets that DO NOT contain any of these keywords, hashtags or screen names will be displayed.
• Containing single #hashtag: Identical to the first field except that this specific hashtag can be removed from the feed output if selected in the final option.
• From: Only tweets from these users will be returned
• Not From: Only tweets not from these users will be returned
• Using Apps: You can filter by the app used to send the tweet. You can select multiple app names by separating by a comma. For example, to return tweets posted with either Hootsuite or Buffer you could enter "Hootsuite, Buffer" here.
• Not Using Apps: Similar to the previous field but here you can return tweets that were posted not using these apps. You can select multiple app names by separating by a comma. For example, to return tweets that were NOT posted using either Hootsuite or Buffer you could enter "Hootsuite, Buffer" here.
• Exclude Scheduling Apps: By checking this box you can exclude a variety of scheduling apps (such as Buffer, IFTTT, Social Oomph and Triberr) from the results. You can edit the list by editing the config file (see later).
• Exclude RTs: By checking this box you can exclude RTs from the results. This uses Twitters own API to only return non retweets, but also searches for RT in the tweets.
• Been Favorited: Only return tweets that have been favorited.
• Been Retweeted: Only return tweets that have been retweeted.

Filters on Tweets

• In Location: You can filter by the location of the person who tweeted the tweet. This filter looks at the location string the users' profile.
• In Bio: You can filter a keyword from the user's profile.
• Writes in Language: You can filter by the language that person who tweeted the tweet writes in.

Once you've done that you can manipulate the output...

• Remove specified Hashtag: If you entered a hashtag in the 'Containing single #hashtag' field above, you can remove this from the output. This is particularly useful if you want to use for cross posting. For example if you want to retrieve tweets with the #li hashtag to cross post to LinkedIn, you won't want the #li hashtag to appear in the feed.
• Remove all Hashtags: This is fairly brutal- it removes all hashtags including inline ones.
• Remove all hashtags from end, but only remove '#' elsewhere: This is probably more useful than the previous hashtag filter. It removes all hashtags from the end of the tweet. However it keeps hashtags in the main body of the tweet but removes the "#" symbol. This is useful when people use hashtags inline where removing would lose the sense of the tweet. For example "Great #twitter app gives you back your #rss feeds #socialmedia #twittertools" would become "Great twitter app gives you back your rss feeds".
• Remove all screen names (including 'via @screenname'): This removes all screen names from the tweet. Useful for cross posting and cleaning up tweets.
• Link to 1st URL contained in tweet (if available): The RSS feed usually links to each tweet, but if you check this option, Twools will link to the first URL contained in each tweet. This is very useful if you want to bookmark articles from tweets, or cross post to LinkedIn or Facebook linking to the article contained in the tweet.
• Unshorten URL (if "Linked to 1st URL contained in tweet" is selected) - SLOW: Twools attempts to unshorten the URL contained in the tweet by finding out where it redirects to. This can be very slow as Twools has to go through each URL individually. However it can be useful when you want to link to clean URLs.
• Remove all URLs: Removes all URLs from the tweet. This is particularly useful if you have selected "link to 1st URL contained in Tweet".
• Show screen name of sender instead of tweet.: If you want to return the screen name of the person who sent the tweet, select this option. This is useful if you want to find out info on your followers or people who mentioned you. You could use this information to follow, unfollow or add them to a list.

Answer 5

Although not a direct way to get feed, there is an RSS reader that supports reading of Twitter timelines - BazQux Reader. It not only shows tweet's text but also author avatar and attached pictures.

You could try import your Google Reader subscriptions and it should automatically handle your old links using new Twitter JSON API. You could also subscribe to new Twitters by just entering twitter.com/UserName url.

PS: I'm the author of BazQux Reader.

Answer 6

There is a site newsmixx.com that displays twitter and other feeds for a search query. Just access their search page and search for a query.