Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Twitter is making it easier for businesses, academics, and third-party developers to build on its platform with the launch of its API v2 today. The company announced the new API last month, but as the news arrived the day after it was hit by one of the most devastating hacks in social media history, it decided to delay the launch. Notably, Twitter is presenting the API v2 not only as a way to deliver new features faster, but as something of a reset in its long and fractious relationship with the app’s developer community.
The API v2 is the first complete rebuild of Twitter’s API since 2012, when the company famously began limiting how third-party developers could build on its product. Prior to this, outside developers could more or less…