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Are there any cloud based private Twitter-like services out there?
I am working for a client who needs a service like this implemented, but we don't have the time or budget to create one from scratch.
I am looking for something with a REST api where I can create an account on it from the master server, set an account to follow another account, post updates for accounts, and then get a feed of posts (sorted by date) from accounts that another account is following (like a facebook wall, or twitter feed). It would be great if it could automatically scale out to hundreds of thousands of users, with perhaps 50 000 daily posts being made.
I had thought about implementing this myself, but it seems like there are some tricky areas when it comes to having an account following a few thousand other accounts, or being followed by 10s of thousands of accounts, and generating the feed in somewhat realtime as posts come in.
I have found some services such as http://www.ning.com/ and http://www.socialengine.com/ but I'm not sure if they can do what I need, and they seem to be very focussed on having a website. This is for a mobile app so that is not required.
There are a few open source projects out there, but they would all require setting up/maintaining hosting (not a huge problem) and I'm not certain how scalable they are (the client requires it scale up to at least 100k users).
I'm sorry for the late reply. I hope it will be useful to others looking at this.
I had pretty much the exact same need as you, and ended up creating a full-featured solution after finding no other resources. The service is called Collabinate (http://www.collabinate.com). It provides a RESTful API that focuses on simplicity and ease of use, and currently leaves the UI completely up to you. It uses a graph database and algorithms in the backend, and scales quite well for your situation.
Maybe private team inbox can fit in your solution too...
https://www.flowdock.com/
there is not a following feature in this but if this is an internal company need...
you can create chat rooms for departments and in general ... maybe the chat rooms can be the following feature for you
Looks like there isn't a good solution here.
I have found jaiku which looks incredibly complex and doesn't seem to run on the latest app engine sdk.
There is also diaspora which could be modified and run on your own server to do what is needed.
In the end, I have decided to just implement this myself on Google App Engine. It seems the best way to do what is needed. Using the fan-out pattern seems to be the best way. The Fantasm library seems to provide an easy to use way to do this, so I am going to try that.
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I am willing to use synchronisation service for my application. But I want to choose the best one. I want to know which one is better among all these. My application will run on Android , IOS , Windows and Web.
I am going with Firebase because I tested it. It is giving me fast results and it is also allowing me to work offline. Is it better or I will go with Parse or AWS Cognito?
I Also have an option of Google Cloud. Does Google Cloud provides service like Firebase? And are realtime updates possible with Parse as like Firebase?
Codeek has a good point that this question is opinion based, so take my answer with a grain of salt.
I have experience with both Parse and Firebase, but not with Cognito.
In my experience, Parse is better when working with large relationship-based databases. (I.E. databases where multiple classes of objects are pointing to each other and interact.) In this system, it is easy to store a lot of data very succinctly, but working with this data is done via snapshots. This means that you can take a snapshot of the data, edit it, and then refresh the server with the updated snapshot. This is perfect for things like my delivery application where only one user is updating the orders on our server at any one time.
Firebase implements a model-observer scheme, and so it is much better for applications that are highly interactive. For instance, I have used Firebase for creating a real-time game of hot potato. The advantage here is that changes to the data on the server are automatically pushed out to all devices that have registered as listeners (functionality not available on Parse from my experience). This keeps all users on the same page all the time. The downside is that the database is structured in a hierarchal manner and doesn't have defined "objects". Rather, it is structured via key/value pairs where parent keys cannot have an associated value. To illustrate this, a sample structure for storing a game on my database went something like this:
-Games
--1
---Users
----1 = "example#gmail.com"
----2 = "example2#gmail.com"
---PotatoHolder = 1
---TimeRemaining = 30
---Loser = -1
Cognito I am not familiar with, so I'll allow someone else to explain how that database system is designed.
In summary, codeek is correct that this is an opinion-based question, but for two of your options a good rule of thumb from my experience is that Parse is fantastic for large relationship databases in conjunction with single-user applications (i.e. single-player or turn based games). Firebase is more suited to hierarchal data systems in conjunction with real-time multiplayer applications.
I hope this helps! If you could post a little more about what kind of application you are trying to build then perhaps I, or someone else, could provide a little more guidance.
Expanded Answer: Although this question has been marked as off topic, to answer Nidhi's follow-up question if there is a way to use Parse as a model-observer scheme: Not easily. Using a timer is the simplest option. The other option is to use push notifications. This would require getting permission from you user. You can set the Cloud Code on Parse to automatically send push notifications all relevant users and then intercept them within your client so that they are "silent". In other words, when they arrive, you can have your client respond by updating your game without showing a ribbon or notification like normal push notifications. I have not done this myself, as I prefer using Firebase for that kind of application, but I believe that it is possible.
Source: PFQueryTableView Auto Refresh When New Data Updated or Refresh Every Minute Using Parse
Keith's answer is similar to Nidhi's reference to refreshing PFObjects via a Timer, Handsomeguy's comment refers to the possibility of "silent" push notifications.
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Should I use google charts in production environment?
Google charts are very easy to use.
https://google-developers.appspot.com/chart/interactive/docs/quick_start
But is it recommended to be used in a production environment?
The API's are not hosted in house but called form google servers.
There is a risk of google changing them or discontinuing them.
I couldn't find any license agreement to use.
Is the data secure as the data is being sent to google servers.
Are the above real risks or am I over thinking.
I was wondering if anyone has any experience with using google API's in production. Or if anyone can give some recommendations.
The Terms of Service cover some of your questions. Basically, Google's deprecation policy says that the API will be available for 3 years following deprecation (and most of the API - namely, the Interactive Charts API - is not deprecated; the old Image Chart API is, however).
For data security, most charts in the Interactive Charts API do not send any data to Google's servers, though there are exceptions. Each chart's documentation has a Data Policy section which explains what, if any, data is sent to Google (examples: AreaCharts, which do not send any data; and GeoCharts, which may send data if you use the geocoding features). Charts in the Image Chart API do send data to Google's servers, as they generate the images server-side rather than client-side, but this API is deprecated anyway, so you probably shouldn't be using it.
The main risk with using the Visualization API in my experience is that you have (practically) no control over versioning. When the development team releases an update, everyone everywhere gets the update. Usually this is a good thing, as it brings new features, bug fixes, and performance enhancements to everyone. Occasionally, however, a new release may introduce a bug, or change the behavior or appearance of a chart in some way that is undesirable for your application. When this happens, you generally cannot roll back to the previous version. For projects that are under active development for long periods of time, this is generally an acceptable trade-off for the free (as in beer) chart API. For projects that do not have a long-term maintenance budget, this can be problematic.
If your user-base is in an area that has poor connectivity to Google's servers, having the API hosted remotely could be problematic, but in general this is not the case.
I have used it in a production environment. All the questions you have posed are very real possibilities. For use it came down to budget, the money was there to purchase a system so we went with what we could afford at the time. The direction you go really depends on budget and existing systems that might be able to achieve the same thing.
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I'm in the position where I may be creating a new web service from scratch - without much pre-existing infrastructure to have to contend with. What resources are there that talk about the architectural aspects of deploying a web service? [Clarification: I'm not talking about an Enterprise SOA orientation here - rather setting up one family of services for the public.]
A first list of topics that I'd like to see covered are:
SOAP vs. REST
JSON vs. XML
Relational Database Backed vs. SimpleDB backed vs. ?
Scaling
Availability
Models for restricting access
Models for throttling access
What would you recommend?
I would recommend Restful Web Services. It's weel written, very complete and vendor agnostic. Also it has a fairly good coverage of both REST (with comparison to SOAP/WS-*), HTTP scaling, resource formats (JSON, XHTML, Atom, XML), security and service modeling.
If you have any specific scaling needs, then you might also want to read Building Scalable Web Sites. It will teach you everything worth knowing about etags, proxies, caching, edge computing and so forth. However if you are just starting out, then the Rest book I mentioned earlier will properly cover most people needs.
If you decide to use Microsoft technology (WCF) then you could check out the Microsoft Patterns and Practices group's online library of guidance.
They have a library located here as part of MSDN which deals with Web Service security, Enterprise Buses (obviously not applicable to you scenario) and PAG's own Web Service Software Factory.
Their main page is located here.
Otherwise, assuming you choose WCF it might be worth checking out further reading such as Juval Lowy's book on WCF, although I fear it may cover the implementation more than the theory and design facets.
Do you know roughly what technology platform you'll be working from?
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Is there a file sharing service akin to Dropbox or SugarSync that would offer an API? I would like to add a file sharing service to a website, but the full Dropbox interface is still too complicated for my users, so that I’d like an API to build a dead-simple list of files integrated to the website. There is a Dropbox API project on Google Code, but it seems to be dead.
Update: I need a service with a desktop client at least for Windows, so that the more technical website users could easily upload and organize the stored data. Extra points if the service has a free plan.
A quick search on ProgrammableWeb brings up about 50 API results.
Out of the lot, I could only say that I have had experience with the Box.net website. I've had no trouble in the past, and they have rather acceptable limits for the free account (25 MB per file; 1 GB of storage).
I'm sure that with a little poking around you'll find something that fits your needs, but I wouldn't expect to find something that offers you a business-scale solution for free, you might have to be prepared to make an investment, and in that case some of Amazon's Web Services might be better suited to your needs.
Edit: Since I answered this question 6 years ago, the landscape for storage solutions with APIs has changed somewhat. There are now free or affordable services with mature developer APIs offered by Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, Rackspace CloudFiles, Microsoft Azure and for mobile, iCloud.
We are a file sharing company that has recently released a fully functioning RESTful API. You can add users, groups, permissions, files, dynamic links and even searching in real-time. Unlike dropbox and sugarsync it was designed for business, thus giving you multi-user access.
We would love your feedback.
http://www.smartfile.com/dev/
smartfile
I used https://uploadcare.com and it works like a charm.
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We're developing a new web service that will be free for low-volume users and subscription-based for higher volume users. Most users will probably invoke it via a plugin for their cms or blog system, and some will use api toolkits for various programming languages. The web service, itself, is straightforward to expose to users, but a full-featured web application needed to configure and manage access to it using a subscription-based business model is more complicated.
We need to build, buy or find a solution that powers a self-service website which lets people:
sign up for free or paid accounts
select and configure service options
enter payment credentials
edit their account and billing profiles
review their service usage and billing history
suspend or cancel their accounts
From an admin perspective, we would also like the system to let us:
monitor and manage service status
log user activity and service consumption
review and manage user accounts
manage recurring billing, flag problem accounts
manage message templates for communicating with users
configure service packages, options and discount codes
perform other, similar administrative activities
This seems like standard stuff that any web-based, self-service subscription system might need. I'm wondering whether anyone out there knows of a package that provides most or all of these features? We're open to considering various programming languages and platforms, although it will be most convenient to deploy and run this on a linux system.
If there's not a solid, open-source solution out there, then we might be interested in sponsoring the creation of one. I'm looking forward to hearing insights form the community. Thanks!
Rick
Subscription management and billing operations are a pain to implement yourself. I would suggest checking out Zuora. Even though there's some cost there, they have a nice API for their cloud service.
Not sure if that would fit with the model you have in mind, but they do take away a headache.
Go with FastSpring , www.fastspring.com
It rocks it addresses all things you mentioned + more.
http://www.fastspring.com/features-subscription.php
METRO sounds like a suitable choice to me considering your preferred server OS:
https://metro.dev.java.net/
Wikipedia has a great comparison table for web service frameworks. This may be a good starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_service_frameworks