Lately I’ve noticed that more and more service seem to include API testing in their list of services. For instance this week at Chirp, Twitter announced their development console available on dev.twitter.com which gives you the ability to test the API without really having to write any code just yet.

This feature is also well known for people using Hurl which is a website that you can use to make HTTP requests and test your API responses. Also on OSX there’s the HTTP Client Tool which does more or less the same as the ones above.

Another company that announced this feature this week was Apigee:

Use the API Console to review an API’s structure, experiment with the endpoint, and review the request and response messages. We’re launching with support for Twitter APIs and are adding more soon

Apigee is basically an analytics tool for your API. It allows you to track requests, users, errors, etc. So for them, implementing the API tester is something that makes sense as they provide statistics for you API, if you notice an error, you should be able to just test the API call and see if you can reproduce from within Apigee.

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Over the past number of days a few issues have arisen around Twitter’s security platform. Most of the security “problems” discovered were either minor or required a high level of social engineering. One thing that has been realized and that is becoming common knowledge, is that once you are logged in to twitter, as soon as you visit another web site, that other site can make an Ajax request and retrieve your user profile.

Personally, I believe that this will be one of the features of web3.0*. The ability to have a single login, not having to log in anywhere and your profile will be recognized, etc. (OAuth, OpenID, etc). We could almost say browser-identifiable-security where one browser window (with as many tabs as you want) could be associated with a single account and all websites you visit would know about you and your information. The idea itself is very neat, but brings with it issues around user privacy.

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A few days ago we were granted commit access to the kick ass,  award winning Adobe AIR Twitter client Spaz.

We are delighted to be part of another open source project, and one that takes a new and innovative approach to web and desktop development.

The Spaz client is a cross-platform (available on AIR platforms) client that allows people to interact with Twitter in a whole new way. It’s great for both regular computer users in it’s ease of use, and heavy twitter users. For example you have different themes with Spaz but you can also override the CSS design to customise the app’s appearance.

The application supports markdown, it minimizes to system tray on windows, it has a URL shortening helper, retweet functionality, the ability to add favourites, the ability to delete messages, twitpic support, and much more.

You can of course go directly on Spaz’s website and read more about it and try it out