VIA: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/guides/2010/04/tutorial-use-twitters-new-real-time-stream-api-in-python.ars/ import pycurl, json STREAM_URL = "http://chirpstream.twitter.com/2b/user.json" USER = "segphault" PASS = "XXXXXXXXX" def on_receive(data): print data conn = pycurl.Curl() conn.setopt(pycurl.USERPWD, "%s:%s" % (USER, PASS)) conn.setopt(pycurl.URL, STREAM_URL) conn.setopt(pycurl.WRITEFUNCTION, on_receive) conn.perform()