Changelog

One this page we inform you about changes to the Meltwater API. You can subscribe to changes using the RSS feed.

All changes

# 3 January 2024 - Improved Combined Search Management

To improve our Saved Search management features we have introduced a new option that allows you to create and manage Combined Searches that include Filter Sets and Custom Categories.

Please refer to the Manage Searches guide here for more information.

Searches
# 5 December 2023 - Omnichannel analytics

We are excited to announce an update to our earned-media analytics features. From today we have removed the requirement to provide a data source for analytics requests, this means it is now possible to run analytics requests across multiple sources in a single API request.

Take a look at the quickstart guide to try out this new feature.

Analytics
# 31 October 2023 - Enhanced Owned Social API with Additional Sources and Metrics

We are excited to announce an update to the Owned social API. This update includes the addition of new social media sources and metrics to provide you with a more comprehensive data analysis experience. New Data Sources:

  • LinkedIn: Get insights into your corporate performance on LinkedIn.
  • TikTok: Analyze user engagement and content effectiveness on TikTok.
  • Twitter: Monitor tweet impressions, engagements, and other metrics on Twitter.

Take a look at the quickstart guide to try these new sources and metrics.

Owned Social
# 26 October 2023 - Sampling on the Export API

With today’s change, the Export API now allows you to enhance your data collection and analysis capabilities by introducing the ability to specify either a maximum document count and/or a percentage sample for your export. Please see the how-to guide on sampling for both one-time exports and recurring exports here.

Export
# 28 July 2023 - New sources, Kakaotalk and LineVoom added to the Meltwater API

Today we released changes that add Kakaotalk and LineVoom as sources you can use on the Meltwater API.

To use these sources you will need to have access to the Source Package. Please contact your account manager if you’d like to add this product to your package.

Analytics Export Streaming
# 9 June 2023 - Notification of Support Link Change

Due to an internal process change, please observe that the link to the Support Portal on the Support page here has been updated. There are no other changes to the support process for customers but we want to highlight this change in case customers have the link bookmarked. We thank you for your patience.

Support
# 3 April 2023 - Notification of Completed Migration

Previously, we announced that as part of an initiative to simplify Saved Searches, we will be changing the search management endpoints. These changes are now in effect and the MI to Explore search migration has been completed. In addition, the temporary changes to the search management endpoints have also been removed.

We thank you for your patience as we have made the changes. To help answer common questions we’ve had about the migration, please refer to the FAQ added to the migration guide.

Please read the migration guide to find out more.

Searches
# 8 March 2023 - Exports - Views data returned in export results

Today we are adding views to export results, the total views is a snapshot of the number of views a document has when exported, the field has been added to the CSV format (as “Views”) and JSON format (as “document_views”).

The exports formats and Fields page has been updated with these changes.

Export
# 12 January 2023 - Notification of upcoming breaking changes

On 3rd April 2023, we will be making breaking changes to the API which impact customers creating exports and creating/updating Saved Searches using the API.

We try to avoid breaking changes where possible, so apologize for the inconvenience caused, however these changes will allow us to provide improved features in the future and move to an improved architecture.

You will need to review the changes as explained in the migration guides below to assess if you need to make changes to your code.

Changes to export endpoints

When creating one-time or recurring exports using the API you will now need to specify an export format. Initially, the two options will be ‘JSON’ and ‘CSV’, matching the existing API features. This will allow us to provide new formats and data fields in the API in the future.

Please read the migration guide to find out more.

Changes to search management endpoints

As part of a wider initiative to simplify Saved Searches across Meltwater, we will be changing search management endpoints. These changes will simplify management of Saved Searches going forward, but you may need to adapt your code.

Please read the migration guide to find out more.

Searches Exports
# 18 March 2022 - Improved Language Detection

We are enhancing document language detection to support a greater number of languages. This affects any language-related inputs and outputs from the Meltwater API services.

Inputs

Previously, the Meltwater API analytics endpoints optional language parameter accepted the following input values:

  • ISO 639-1 two-letter language codes
  • zh-Hans (Chinese Simplified)
  • zh-Hant (Chinese Traditional)
  • zz (Unknown)

This has been updated so the endpoints can now accept:

  • ISO 639-1 two-letter language codes
  • ISO 639-2 three-letter language codes
  • zh-Hans (Chinese Simplified)
  • zh-Hant (Chinese Traditional)
  • zz (Unknown)

If a language has both a two-letter and three-letter code (e.g. en and eng), then use the two-letter language code in the input. In these cases, the three-letter code will always return 0 results.

Outputs

The following Meltwater API services emit language codes as part of their output:

  • Analytics Summary endpoint - response body
  • Exports - output documents
  • Streaming - output documents

Previously, these language codes were returned:

  • ISO 639-1 two-letter language codes
  • zh-Hans (Chinese Simplified)
  • zh-Hant (Chinese Traditional)
  • zz (Unknown)

This has been updated so they can now return:

  • ISO 639-1 two-letter language codes
  • ISO 639-2 three-letter language codes
  • zh-Hans (Chinese Simplified)
  • zh-Hant (Chinese Traditional)
  • zz (Unknown)

If a language has both a two-letter and three-letter code, then the two-letter language code will be returned in the output.

Analytics Exports Streaming
# 25 February 2022 - New Owned Social Analytics features

We have recently added features to the Meltwater API that allow customers to fetch data from owned social accounts. If you connect a Facebook page or Instagram account that you own to the Meltwater platform, you can now fetch analytics and metrics for these accounts through the API.

Note that you need access to Engage or Social Analytics features in the Meltwater application to use these features, and that these new features are only available to Beta participants. Please reach out to your account manager if you’d like access to these features.

The quickstart guide explains how to get started using the new features.

Owned Social
# 4 November 2021 - Changes to Youtube data availability

Moving forward, to remain compliant with YouTube’s data policies, Meltwater will change the length of time for which we store and surface YouTube content. Whereas we previously-stored YouTube data from the last 15 months, now we will surface the last 30 days. This change applies to API exports and analytics features, and all Meltwater applications.

Exports Analytics
# 4 November 2021 - API credentials are now managed in the Meltwater application

We have recently updated our account management process to allow customers to manage their API token (previously referred to as the ‘API key’) in the main Meltwater application.

To learn more please read this guide.

# 21 October 2021 - Exports - New document hashtags field

We have introduced a new document_hashtags field into the output documents. This contains a list of the hashtags within the content. The # prefix is omitted for each item in the list.

Exports
# 23 September 2021 - Changes to accessing usage statistics

We are moving to a new system for recording usage statistics for API customers. This will give customers better visibility into their usage going forwards, and includes usage of the analytics features.

As part of this change we have retired the usage charts previously available in the Developer Portal, but have introduced new API endpoints to allow you to fetch usage statistics. The new endpoints are explained in this guide.

Note that usage statistics are available as of 23rd September 2021 in the new system. If you would like usage data before this point please request this from support.

We will re-introduce usage charts in future.

Exports Analytics
# 17 September 2021 - Support for creating and updating Explore category searches

We have updated the API to allow customers to create and update Explore category searches. Please read the Managing Searches guide to learn more.

Searches
# 7 September 2021 - New source Little Red Book has been added to the Meltwater API

Today we released changes that add Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) as a data source you can use across the Meltwater API.

To use this source you will need to have access to the Source Package. Please contact your account manager if you’d like to add this product to your package.

Analytics Export
# 31 August 2021 - New sources, Douyin and WeChat added to the Exports API

Today we released changes that add Douyin and WeChat as sources you can use for exports.

To use these sources you will need to have access to the Source Package. Please contact your account manager if you’d like to add this product to your package.

Export
# 20 August 2021 - New sources, Douyin and WeChat added to the Meltwater Analytics API

Today we released changes that add Douyin and WeChat as sources you can use for analytics.

To use these sources you will need to have access to the Source Package. Please contact your account manager if you’d like to add this product to your package.

Analytics
# 10 August 2021 - New sources, Twitch, Tiktok and Pinterest added to the Meltwater API

Today we released changes that add Twitch, Tiktok and Pinterest as sources you can use for exports and analytics.

To use these sources you will need to have access to the Source Package. Please contact your account manager if you’d like to add this product to your package.

Analytics Export
# 7 July 2021 - Opening Text for Facebook and Instagram sources

For exports, we now provide the first 140 characters of Facebook and Instagram posts and comments (where possible). This is provided in the document_opening_text field in the JSON format, and the Opening Text field in the CSV format.

Additionally we now populate the document_city, document_region and document_location_approximate fields for news documents where possible.

Exports Facebook Instagram
# 8 February 2021 - Support for Facebook and Instagram in exports and analytics

Today we released changes that add Facebook and Instagram as sources you can use for exports and analytics.

For exports, if your saved search includes Facebook or Instagram data this will be included in your export. See the formats and fields page for details of available fields.

For analytics (if you have access to this feature), you can now use these sources as the ‘source’ parameter for many of the analytics endpoints. Please see the endpoint documentation for full details.

Export Analytics Instagram Facebook
# 1 February 2021 - Analytics - Expanding top languages and top country codes

Today we’ve expanded the number of top languages and top country codes returned in the analytics summary api.

We now return a maximum of 50 languages and country codes.

Analytics
# 4 December 2020 - Exports - Additional fields for export results

Today we’ve added some additional fields to export results:

  • Engagement, the total engagement a tweet has seen, has been added to the CSV format (as “Engagement”) and JSON format (as “document_engagement”)
  • City & State, have been added to the CSV format (these were already present in JSON format)
  • The “Earned Traffic” field which was already present in CSV format has been added to the JSON format as “document_earned_traffic”.

The Exports Formats and Fields page has been updated with these changes.

Export
# 13 November 2020 - Analytics API - Multi-company support and Author Count Analysis

Today we’ve released two new features to the analytics API.

All existing analytics endpoints now support a company_id parameter, the same way export and search management endpoints do. If you have multiple companies set up for your Meltwater account, this parameter allows you to specify a search belonging to one of your other companies.

We’ve also added an extra field to the output of the Summary endpoint called unique_authors, this is a count of the number of unique authors in the window. If you’re analysing news it will always return 0, but will work on all other types.

As usual you can see these changes reflected in the Endpoints Documentation.

Analytics
# 2 November 2020 - New analytics endpoints - top keyphrases, top locations, top entities

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been working on adding new analytics features to the API.

We’ve added the following new analytics endpoints:

  • top_keyphrases: provides the top words and keyphrases found in documents that match your search.
  • top_entities: provides the top entities found in documents that match your search.
  • top_locations: provides the top locations (countries, states, cities) of authors for documents in your search.

Please see the Endpoints Documentation for more details.

Analytics
# 21 September 2020 - Upcoming changes to Twitter & YouTube data

To stay compliant with the latest Terms of Service for Twitter and YouTube we will be making some changes to the fields we provide through the Meltwater API.

Some existing fields will be redacted from the 18th November. Please read the Compliance Changes page for more details.

Twitter Youtube Export
# 7 September 2020 - Announcing API version 3

We have released a new version of the API which consolidates export and analytics feature into one product. Please read the Migrating to V3 of the API guide to learn more.

Export Analytics
# 27 February 2020 - Removing data_url for INCOMPLETE one-time exports

One-time exports are assigned a status of INCOMPLETE when data for one or more of the searches/tags cannot be exported. In these cases, the data_url will return partial/no results, which may result in inconsistencies. Going forward, the data_url will no longer be provided for INCOMPLETE exports.

Export
# 12 December 2019 - Adding Social Echo for Reddit

We have added the field document_social_echo_reddit to the payload. This Social Echo field shows the number of Reddit shares of an editorial article.

Export
# 26 November 2019 - Searches from Explore now fully available in the Export API

If you have purchased Meltwater’s new Explore product you can now create exports through the Export API for the searches set up in Explore as well.

As Explore allows you to search data across different source types (News, Social), an export from an Explore search may contain results from various sources as well. This differs from exports from searches from our Media Intelligence product, where a single search will always contain results from a single source type only!

Note: In order to create exports for your Explore searches with mixed source types, you need to have purchased the appropriate product packages to retrieve the respective source types through the API.

Export
# 12 November 2019 - Adding new reach fields to editorial documents

  • Field source_reach_desktop: The monthly unique desktop visitors to the source of the document.
  • Field source_reach_mobile: The monthly unique mobile visitors to the source of the document.

The existing field source_reach now contains the sum of the two metrics above.

Please check the Meltwater help center if you want to know more regarding how articles are measured.

Export
# 20 September 2019 - Removing country from /companies endpoint

We have removed the country field, in the API response of the /companies endpoint. All customers impacted by this change have been informed via email.

Export
# 11 February 2019 - Simplified setup for exports based on tags

We have introduced couple of changes, which should simplify creating exports based on tags:

  • Updated the Export Console to provide selection of existing tags for given company. This will give you a confidence that export is always created for existing / correct tags
  • Updated API to provide an endpoint (export/v1/tags) to list all tags for the given company
  • Updated API to validate tags existence on export creation request. If you are trying to create an export for non-existing tag, you will receive below error:
{
  "errors": [
    {
      "type": "TAG",
      "title": "Unknown resource",
      "details": "The tag names you provided ([\"tag\"]) are unknown"
    }
  ]
}

Export
# 9 January 2019 - Added two fields `document_earned_traffic` and `document_hidden`

  • Field document_earned_traffic
    Earned Traffic is defined as anonymous web traffic that first visits an article that is defined in your search, and then visits any page on your domain within 7 days that follows.
    This field is enabled when you have the PR-ROI Package.

  • Field document_hidden
    When viewing search results in app.meltwater.com, it is possible to ‘Hide’ documents, to prevent them from being displayed as part of your seraches.
    This field will be true if a document has been marked as hidden, false otherwise. With this field it’s possible to determine which documents have been hidden and filter them out accordingly as part of your workflow.

Export
# 8 January 2019 - Support for exports based on tags

Happy New Year!

We’ve introduced the ability to carry out an export of data based one or several tags. This can also be combined with search ids. The exported data will include documents that match your provided search ids or any of the tags. Here’s an example request:

{
  "onetime_export": {
    "search_ids": [123, 456],
    "tags": ["Big data", "API"],
    "start_date": "2019-01-01T00:00:00Z",
    "end_date": "2019-01-04T23:59:59Z"
  }
}

Note, the tags must correspond to tags you have already created on app.meltwater.com. See the following article for more information on tags: Using Tags

Export