Optimizing commentThread API call

[knightron0]

The API quota for the YouTube Data API is ridiculously low (10,000 requests per day, each request can return maximum 100 comments) and my application for an extension has been under review for over two weeks now. (This is precisely why the extension does not work approaching 12:00 AM PDT)

According to my research before release, the only way of reducing the number of requests was by utilizing the searchTerms field in the API call. Out of the many approaches I tried, I found that adding half-timestamps in the following format to the searchTerms field works the best:

"0: | 1: | 2: ....  59: | 1:00: | 1:01:"

Here are some comparisons I did a month ago between the naive approach and this one.

Video: 33,832 total comments

Approach	Number of requests	Timestamped comments found
Naive	236	1085
Optimized	106	1076

Video: 71,071 total comments

Approach	Number of requests	Timestamped comments found
Naive	587	1013
Optimized	38	998

The number of requests was drastically decreased with a minor change in the number of timestamped comments found. Since there are non-timestamped comments that pass through the filter and timestamped comments that don't get included, the current approach is fairly suboptimal and can be improved.