What are the limits of the Twitter data importers? | NodeXL

What are the limits of the Twitter data importers?

The use of NodeXL Pro Twitter data importers requires a twitter account. Before your first data import you need to authorize NodeXL by entering a token number which is automatically sent to you during the authorization process.

Moreover Twitter’s public free API has many limits. NodeXL Basic and Pro are both effected by these limits. Data is available only for 8-9 days. Queries cannot return more than 18,000 tweets.

The follower network is further restricted: the rate at which queries about who follows who can be asked is low.

NodeXL Pro does not enable the collection of data beyond these limits. That said, NodeXL can process data from commercial data providers (like Crimson Hexagon or Radian6). While these are expensive options, they may be the only way to get historical data from Twitter.

Commercial services like Radian6 and Crimson Hexagon might provide archival data – but not cheaply!

Please see: https://nodexl.codeplex.com/discussions/650609 and: https://nodexl.codeplex.com/discussions/649987

You may be able to get a little bit more data from the public Twitter API by using the SINCE: and UNTIL: operators – example:

QUERYTERM since:2016-01-21 until:2016-01-27

Since: and Until: operators scope the time frame of the query.

Twitter controls its API and throttles it based on unknowable parameters. We notice that the more the volume of tweets == less tweets delivered.

One alternative is to do day long slices and append them in order to maximize the data available from Twitter.

You may also be interested in this: http://graphserverimporter.codeplex.com which enables NodeXL to connect to the “STREAM” API from Twitter (which sometimes delivers larger volumes of data).