⌙ Google , Google Sheets , Twitter

Free the tweets! Export TwapperKeeper archives using Google Spreadsheet

Martin Hawksey

Dec 8th, 2011: Transition update
Twapper Keeper’s archiving is now available in HootSuite! As a result, we will be shutting down Twapper Keeper. Existing archives will be kept running until Jan 6, 2012, after which you will not be able to access your archives anymore.
Thanks for using TwapperKeeper – we look forward to seeing you at HootSuite.

Noooo I hear you cry. I know a lot of academic staff use did use the Twitter archiving service TwapperKeeper to archive tweets from events and conferences. Whilst often these archives are usually only used for quick post event summaries I think there is a lot more value to be gained from these resources. They are rich records of ideas and resources, shared within the instant but too often forgotten.
In projects iTitle and TAGSExplorer I’ve been exploring how these archives can be brought back to life so it is a great shame to see that TwapperKeeper will soon be no more. As staff consider new alternatives to keep archives of their events (you might want to consider my Google Spreadsheet solution, it’s free and your to control!) here’s a way to export your existing TwapperKeeper archives.
Inspired by LIBREAS.Library Grab your TwapperKeeper Archive before Shutdown! I’ve developed a Google Spreadsheet to export TwapperKeeper Archives. Here’s how:

  1. Open this Google Spreadsheet and click File > Make a copy (if this is greyed out you need to be logged in to Google first)
  2. Enter the archive name, type and the number of results you want to get in cells B9 to B11
  3. Click  the button ‘Get the archive!’

[Note: this solution works for archives of a 15,000 tweets or less]
If you need more archives make more copies of the spreadsheet.
Please share so that we can free the tweet!
Update: Having read Brian Kelly’s post on the Responding to the Forthcoming Demise of TwapperKeeper it occurred to me that some coordination might be required. So if you use this template could you publish a copy (File > Share > Anyone who has the link can view and File > Publish to the web) of the spreadsheet and leave a note of where it is using this form which is embedded below (responses can be seen here):
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Responses:

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comment 29 comments

  • Deborah

    Martin, thanks for all your work on managing Tweets, it’s amazing how much you’ve accomplished from archiving to visualizations to backing up Twapperkeeper. I have no idea how I would manage my tweet archives without your tools.
    Thank you.

  • Responding to the Forthcoming Demise of TwapperKeeper « UK Web Focus

    […] Hawksey has published a post on his MASHe blog which describes how you can Free the tweets! Export TwapperKeeper archives using Google Spreadsheet.  Martin’s post also links to a post entitled LIBREAS.Library Grab your TwapperKeeper […]

  • TwaperKeeper archives | nostuff.org

    […] Martin Hawksey has created a wonderful tool for archiving, ummm, archives before they are gone. The tool is actually a Google Spreadsheet and […]

  • Goodbye Twapper Keeper « The Event Amplifier

    […] have used Martin Hawksey’s Google Spreadsheet tool, described in his post: Free the tweets! Export TwapperKeeper Archives Using Google Spreadsheet. I will also take a series of screenshots from Summarizr about each archive to serve as a visual […]

    • Martin Hawksey

      seems to be populating with something now

  • Tom Roper

    Thanks Martin, clearly I need to be patient. Will do all my archives and add to the list

  • Gillian

    Thanks for this! I got the spreadsheet to work and I get the pop up which says it is inserting the required number of rows. However I can’t find the results anywhere! Where are they supposed to appear? On the same spreadsheet? A different file?

    • Martin Hawksey

      Hi Gillian – they should appear on a sheet called Archive (Google can take a couple of seconds to catch up – refreshing the sheet might help things along)

      • Gillian

        Thanks – found it now!

  • Gary Green

    Thanks for putting this together Martin. Really useful. Still a shame that Twapperkeeper is shutting up shop though!
    Gary

    • Martin Hawksey

      Thanks Gary! It’s going to be missed by academic community. Makes you think JISC should put the open source version (yourTwapperkeeper) on a server behind federated access. Would that count as a OER Rapid Innovation project?

      • Gary Green

        Didn’t JISC fund it at some point? How does that fit into Hootsuite buying it? Better not go there, hey?
        On another note, I was just wondering if your Google spreadsheet/script pulls out the data using exactly the same url format that Twapperkeeper itself uses? I noticed the link next to “Test archive setting” is the same format. If it is, would I be able to enter a date restriction to pull out chunks of large archives – 1 of my archives contains 50,000+ tweets!
        If it isn’t possible, no worries, I have a clunky Gary backup plan. 🙂
        Thanks – Gary

  • Sarath

    Hi Martin,
    I could not run this Google spreadsheet. Getting error message “could not parse text. (line 19)
    Please advise.
    Thanks,
    Sarath

    • Martin Hawksey

      TwapperKeeper is now closed, so data can no longer be obtained

  • Melissa

    Hi Martin,
    Now that Twapperkeeper is closed and I do not want to pay hootsuite to activate an archive. Do you know of any free alternatives?
    many thanks! 🙂

  • » Roger T. Whitson, Ph.D

    […] was lost when the API terms changed. There are other options, like the Archivist, and another from Martin Hawksky which uses Google Docs to archive. But both of these are essentially commercial […]

  • David F. Flanders

    Love your work, using this for #OKFNau 🙂

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