Project Scope:
Look at our site [login to view URL]; it is a mobile interface for [login to view URL] social network. It is used by MySpace members to communicate with other users.
Currently it allows users to do things like:
view profiles,
view about,
browse friends,
view photos,
search,
view/send private messages,
view/send comments,
view/send bulletins,
request/confirm friends.
Currently the backend does not support MySpace API calls, instead it scrapes or posts all of this information from the site and parses it out. Due to the nature of scraping technology there is a lot of upkeep associated with keeping abreast with MySpace changing their layout and with time/server load to process user request etc.
Goal:
We would like to update our networking backend to use MySpace API calls to bring the info our users are looking for. ([login to view URL])
Our initial analysis shows that some functionality which want to support is not supported via the official MySpace API calls themselves. For example, I do not see a way to send private messages. In this situation we would to use a suplement MySpace API calls with our existing scapper scripts or new scripts. For example, in theory, if existing scripts require authenticated log in string, user id and friend's id to send a message. Then MySpace API calls can authenticate the user recieving the log in string, get user id and get friends id, then pass this info to the existing script to send the message. (If this is not possible, then we would like to remove the features we can't support)
Proposed Steps:
Step 1:
- Examine the fuctionality of [login to view URL]
- Match to which functions MySpace REST API support
Step 2: Develop the supported functions using MySpace Rest API, replacing old functionality with newly created Rest API calls based backend.
Step 3: Test