Get screen name using web Intents Javascript Events

[pedrojventura]

I am using Web Intents Javascript Events with the follow button.

Everything works perfectly.
When click on follow button, the javascript is called and I got the event data

twttr.events.bind(‘follow’, function(event) {
var followed_user_id = event.data.user_id;
var followed_screen_name = event.data.screen_name;
});

This will return the user_id and screen_name of followed user, but I also would like to get the follower, I mean the “followed_by” user id or screen_name. Is is possible?

[episod]

No, this data isn’t shared with site owners directly. You can monitor your new followers and draw guesses, but that’s pretty much the only way to correlate.

[pedrojventura]

I would like to track the followers who click on the “follow button” on my site. Save the data on my db and create my own stats. I thought I could to this on a simple way by using web Intents Javascript Events and save the info sending it to a php through an ajax call.

I can imagine that it isn’t the greatest way to do that, but what you recommend me?

[lurchpop]

You should mention that this is a NEW policy since you guys started locking down your entire API.

You still have documentation that says what he’s trying to do should work.
https://dev.twitter.com/docs/intents/events

[episod]

This isn’t actually a new “policy” – this is the way our javascript events for web intents have worked since they were launched back in 2011.

All the documentation on the page you linked to around instrumenting the Follow Button or Follow Intent indicates how to obtain the data on the user that was followed, not the user that performed the follow action. If you’re interested in the user that performed the follow, we have a REST API and authentication system you can use to first have the user grant your application/site the “permission” to know their identity.

Otherwise, you can also use the REST or Streaming APIs to monitor follow events occurring on an account that you control. You won’t be able to identify an end user on your site directly, but one can correlate.

[niall]