Search API returning (very) sparse geocode results

[andypiper]

Thanks everyone for the patience, and for your questions on timings.

I’ve asked the teams involved for an update just today, and as soon as I have something to share, I will do so. We are globally distributed so I can’t rock up to someone’s desk to pin them down for an answer.

To address one of the comments on this thread - there’s no deliberate effort here to push anyone to an alternative. Something broke and needs to be fixed, and as I understand it the work to resolve it is ongoing (if not something I can tell you about in more detail as I type this, or I would!).

[firstaidshot]

it’s been another week, just checking to see if there’s anything to report on this yet… thanks!

[NateMQ]

I have a business that relies heavily on the location search API. Since it broke a few months ago, We have lost half of our customers. We have been working on contingency plans to hopefully avoid going out of business, but I don’t understand the vague “non-responses” from Twitter on here. Why not be more forthcoming? I understand that you may not know exactly when it will be fixed. But what is your goal or your hope for getting it fixed? Someone there knows the answer to that question.

I find it hard to believe that a world class organization like Twitter has been completely stumped for the past 3 months and has no idea how to fix something that has been part of the product for a long time. It’s either not a priority or you are not planning to fix it. Either way, please just tell us. There are real people and real jobs on the line here.

Any guidance would be extremely appreciated. Thank you.

[aydin]

I’d like to second the sentiments of NateMQ here.

I understand that sometimes, unfortunately, the bigger the beast, the longer it takes for issues to be resolved but it is now several months.

Our core social media marketing strategy has been massively affected by this and unfortunately my faith in Twitter as a viable platform for marketing.

[SimonjFreeman]

In the absence of noticeable progress, has anyone come up with a viable alternative/work around in the meantime? Been playing around with 4sq, Insta, Facebook etc but nothing I’ve found has a comparable user base.

[MikeW]

My business has lost a considerable amount of money in the last two months as the product almost entirely depends on geo-location. One solution that may be useful is using the search API to catch every tweet, and manually doing the geo-location yourself to filter and save only tweets that match the desired criteria. Google’s geo coding API could help in this regard.

[SKHardcastle]

I have almost 10 clients on Twitter that I heavily rely on monitoring tweets around a location. I’m considering pulling them all from the platform and focusing my time on something like Instagram (where we actually get engagement). If this isn’t resolved by the end of the month, I most likely will.

[NateMQ]

It’s been 15 days since the last “update” from Twitter on this thread. Does anyone know if there is a better place to get answers?

[andypiper]

Hi everyone. After some thorough internal investigation and conversations, I’ve got an update.

Our current outlook for the significant work required to resolve this is that it will be 2Q before it can be started. There’s a lot of work to be done, and we are very aware of the ongoing frustration that this is causing for everyone. Unfortunately there’s just no simple workaround here.

We recognise the impact this is having, through each of the stories we are hearing from you in this thread and elsewhere, and can only apologise.

[NateMQ]

Thanks Andy. Not sure if I understand that correctly, so just want to clarify. The way I read your response is that nothing will happen in terms effort until Q2. At that point, sometime between April 1st and June 30th (a 3 month window), they will START working on this. Once they start working on it, we still don’t know if that is a 2 week effort or a 2 year effort based on your response.

Since you did conduct a thorough investigation, I’m not sure if you intended for your response to be so vague. Did I misunderstand? I can live with bad news, but I feel like we still don’t know anything here.

[andypiper]

Yes, that’s basically the correct summary. I’m hearing that it is something to be tackled some time after April 1st, no sooner. Now that I know this, I wanted to post it here to help to set expectations again.

The only thing I’d add is that I’d hope that we would be able to resolve it within a reasonable timeframe once we have the bandwidth to do the work in Q2, but it still might take some effort to get back to where we all want to be. So I’m afraid that I’m still having to be vague on the timescale to complete resolution, which is less than ideal as an answer for you.

[SKHardcastle]

Will Twitter’s partnership with Foursquare have any impact on this?

I have stopped recommending Twitter to potential clients because of this glitch. I only work with local businesses that rely on the location-based Twitter search. Very unfortunate.

[RobinMeisel]

Looking to see if that we have reached the April 1st date if we are still on track to start the work?

[Smrt_Test]

Hi,

I’m facing same issue, search tweets is not working with geo code, but without that it works, please correct me if I’m wrong at something and it is working fine at other’s end.

Thanks in advance.

[azrael]

saw a story about a new Twitter search being tested. Any chance this has something to do with an update (aka good news) on this front? If not are there any updates?
Thanks.

[NateMQ]

I’m starting to see some local search results that are not geo-tagged. Has this issue been fixed or am I not reading my results correctly?

[jkgeyti]

I don’t see any changes to our feed(s). Months back, a few non-geotagged results started showing up, doubling/tripling the rate of incoming tweets, but nothing like before the endpoint broke.

[aydin]

any chance of an update from Twitter on this? Or do we just sit and hope?

[markzohar]

Andy,

It’s almost the end of April. Can you update us on the status of this issue. Has the dev work started yet? Can you provide a ballpark timeframe for resolution? Any communication or update would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[NateMQ]

What’s the word on this, Twitter? Please share an update.

Thanks