In my Blog Report 23-1 I mentioned that I was looking into how to automatically post blog entries from my WordPress blog here to Mastodon but gave up upon discovering I could do so if I upgraded to a plan 5x more expensive! Well, it looks like getting my posts to Twitter, which is a free widget in WordPress Jetpack, may not be so easy in the future.
Why is Twitter changing the API? Techcruch tells us:
Making API access paid is Musk’s latest move to bring more money into Twitter. The company has expanded Twitter Blue to 15 countries now. According to recent reports, only 180,000 people have signed up for that in the U.S. The Information noted that at this rate, Twitter is set to make only $27.8 million this year from subscriptions.
“Twitter says the basic tier of its API will cost $100 per month”
Ivan Mehta, @indianidle , 1:51 AM EST•February 9, 2023
Yes, if the Twitter API is cut off from my blog I can always “go manual.” That is not as easy as it sounds and demands a whole new workflow. My blog is a work of passion, not a source of income, and the time I devote to it is limited by many life factors. I already decided that Mastodon isn’t worth it…now I likely have to make the same choice for Twitter.
I know there are more than a few out there who are saying, “Good riddance! We don’t need Elon and his stupid f*cking bird site!” Well, I hope you’re happy that all that anti-Musk rage is leading to decisions that hurt many others, like researchers, as Twitter tries to monetize the site:
The API changes will also have a disastrous impact on the research community. Currently, there are scores of journalists, nonprofits and academic institutions that use Twitter’s API to research misinformation, public health, education and numerous other issues. Requiring these researchers to pay could effectively end these projects, particularly for organizations that are smaller and not as well-funded. For now, it’s not clear if these organizations will have any other options available to them.
“Twitter is shutting down its free API, here’s what’s going to break,” Endgadget, Karissa Bell, @karissabe, February 8, 2023 12:43 PM
In the meantime you can always follow my blog on WordPress (see the follow button below the post).
Feature image courtesy Pexels
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Rocky Mountain Navy Gamer 
Not a fan of making API access paid either. I fail to see, however, how this (and the negative consequences for researchers and others) is in any way related to users’ discontent with Musk (or their voicing of said discontent). Making API access paid is Twitter’s business decision. It has not been forced on the Twitter leadership by non-paying users leaving the site (and thus, still not paying).
I post to 4 social media sites to share my blog posts. I type up a little blurb with link in Notepad. Copy. Paste/Send. Paste/Send. Paste/Send. Paste/Send. Done. It goes real quick.
Instagram used to be a real headache, ’cause I won’t install it on my phone, but they recently wised up and designed a fully-functional desktop site.
Twitter has never really been a great place for talking games. Tweets are too short to have any substance, and need to be provocative to get any traction. And I’m not into controversy, so it’s the weakest of my social media sites.
I need to change my workflow. Question for me is, “Is it worth it?” I’m not driving views for money or the like…
Sure. To answer the value question, you’ll need to quantify the effect a Twitter post has on the number of readers it brings to your post.
For me, social media posts triple or quadruple the number of same-day visitors to a new blog post. And of that, Facebook is the 800lb gorilla. RPGers love their FB Groups. I could close all my other WB social media accounts and see little drop-off. But once I create a post for FB, it’s little trouble to copy it into the other sites.