5th
notify.me API release
We got a little too excited about our C# library, we announced it before we annouced our API release … so without further adieu, here’s the announcement for our API release:
notify.me is releasing the first phase of our developer API. The API enables content publishers to deliver notifications into a notify.me customer’s notification stream. In doing so content publishers can reach out to their user base through a variety of communication mediums which currently include instant messenger, email, text messages and a cross platform desktop application in real time. With the use of the notify.me API, content publishers can now effortlessly get their users to subscribe to real time notifications through the notify.me service, as a result content publishers can drive users to their site when new content is published.
Currently the majority of websites support the RSS/Atom standards for publishing content, while these standards provide a step in the right direction for publishing data, they come with some limitations, most notably:
- RSS/Atom rely on structuring the data in the XML, a fairly common problem that content publishers face is to consistantly publish valid XML data. Everybody makes misakes even giants like google and craiglist publish invalid XML feeds from time to time.
- Once an RSS feed is published and users are subscribed to the the source URL it can not be changed. If it is changed users will no longer receive updates, resulting in dead RSS feeds, this results in a horrible user experience which in turn results in the loss of users for content publishers.
- RSS feeds rely on content ingestors such as RSS readers to constant poll sites for updates.
Simply put, RSS is hard to get right. The initial feature set of the API addresses the above problems that content publishers currently experience. With the notify.me API, content publishers can rest assured that their data is formatted correctly since notify.me verifies the data and returns a success or failure when content is published, second content publishers need not worry about dead links, since users are subscribed to an API source content publishers are free to change their URLs without the fear of lossing their customers, finally the API allows content publishers to push notifications allowing their users to get instant updates within seconds of an article being published rather than relying of being polled for updates.
The notify.me application is built on a scalable real time notification engine that processes incoming messages from sources, and not only routes them to a specific user, but it filters them according to a user’s preference and routes them to a user’s destination of choice. The API provides an elegant interface that takes the guess work out of knowing whether a content publisher succeeded in delivering a notification to a user, once the API returns a success publishers can rest assured that the message will reach the intended audience.
We believe the API will really entice sites that are looking to provide a value add to their customer’s experience in which being a first responder makes a difference. Take for example woot.com, they have a limited inventory of items for which users compete, or perhaps stackoverflow.com for which you have you gain a competitive advantage by replying first. Not only does the API address the first responder issue, but it also guarantees the delivery of a message from a content publisher to an end user. We also expect to get some great feedback and suggestions from our user base that have inspired us in the past, so we’re really excited to open up a public inferface for people to build and integrate applications with.
Our company’s focus in the near term will be to complete the implementation of a full featured API allowing both content publishers and customers complete control over their notify.me experience. To see the complete road map for the API, please visit: http://wiki.notify.me/API/REST_API/Roadmap_Draft
Cheers,
-Hani Anani
