'Net Features : bitly

Gnip Adds Reddit, Instagram API’s

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Data aggregation platform Gnip announced the addition of public APIs for Instagram, Reddit, bitly, Stack Overflow, Panaramio and Plurk to its Enterprise Data Collector.

Gnip, the firm responsible for marketing the Twitter and Tumblr firehoses, is a popular source of data for developers. Each month it delivers more than 100 billion “social data activities” to its clients making it a powerful platform for those looking for opportunities to enrich their application’s experience for end-users.

Let’s take a closer look at the API’s that have been added to Gnip and what developers now have at their disposal by using its Enterprise Data Collector:

- Instagram: Users will be able to access popular posts, conduct tag searches and geo-related searches

- Reddit: Gnip users will be able to search by keyword and hot topics; ideal for monitoring brand mentions, particularly in a crisis communication context.

- Bitly: Users are able to search keywords, destination page titles and URLs, and some of the content and header tags. See some recent coverage of bitly's API from Website Magazine.

- Stack Overflow: Gnip customers will have access to the entire firehose of Stack Overflow answers and be able to search tags, reputation and comments by keyword.

- Panoramio: Gnip customers will be able to use the photo-sharing website to monitor social activity within a certain geographic area.

- Plurk: Gnip customers will be able to search the microblogging site for keywords within posts to understand trending content and monitor the platform for specific brand mentions.

Use Bitly Social Data for Content Marketing

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 18:30:00 GMT

The buzz among marketers and Web developers this week has in great part revolved around Bitly's public release of its new social data API.

The amount of information that is shortened, shared and ultimately clicked by Web users is absolutely staggering. With the new Bitly API, it's finally possible to access the content that is actively being shared across all of the social networks.

Bitly’s API provides three types of functionality to access - real-time search, attention spikes and metadata about the URLs being shared.

- REAL-TIME: Developers can run a qiery and retrieve the top URLs and stories for the query (which can be very specific words or include filtering criteria)

- ATTENTION SPIKES: Bitly’s bursts API returns current phrases that are receiving a “burst in attention beyond what may be expected. Bursts automatically aggregates multiple articles about the same topic.

- URL Metadata: Developers can also query on a URL basis for keywords, topics, content, language and location relevance.

So how can this information be used for content marketing? Well, when you know what’s trending (and when you’re actively listening and monitoring social data in real time for attention spikes, the choices you make in terms of what content you’ll publish will naturally be better –meaning, you’ll won’t guess wrong because those decisions are rooted in empirical evidence (data).

Expect many social media management solutions to integrate with Bitly’s API in the coming months.

New-look Bit.ly Adds Curation Features

Michael Garrity — Wed, 30 May 2012 15:00:00 GMT

Popular link-shortening service Bit.ly has undergone a redesign that includes the release of a handful of new features heavily focused on curation.

One of these new options is the inclusion of a bookmarking feature called “bitmarks.” With bitmarks, users will be able to save and review the links they’ve shared on Facebook and Twitter, as well as organize them into bundles.

This is essentially a feature the company launched back in 2010, but organizing these bundles is now more collaborative. Any of these bundles can be made private or public. There is now also a network view that allows users to see the links their friends are sharing publicly on Facebook and Twitter.

Other features include the ability to search and find these bookmarks, fast search functionality and enhanced public profiles that offer greater privacy controls for users. There will also be new bookmarklets, an extension for the Chrome browser and Bit.ly’s first-ever iPhone application. These will allow users to save and share links from virtually anywhere.

Developers can immediately start using Bit.ly’s open API to add bitmarking functionality to their apps.

Friday 15 for Web Pros

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 20:00:00 GMT

Friday is the perfect opportunity to take a moment and look back at the most important and interesting business and technology developments of the week – those that will influence you in the future and likely are impacting some aspect of your Web enterprise right now. This week, let’s look at 15 key developments in the world of Web business.

- The Open Commerce Ecosystem of Ebay Arrives
Ebay has been the talk of the Web this week with its X.commerce effort, which aims to connect developers with merchants to create a complete commerce operating system. A few of the integrations announced at the Innovate Developer Conference include those with Facebook (integrating Open Graph functionality through Magento and GSI), Adobe (integrating its digital marketing platform), Kenshoo (which automates digital marketing campaigns) and online bookkeeping tool Outright.

- The Value of Real-Time Search Data
URL shortener bit.ly played its trump card this week – an immense set of real-time data. The company released a reputation monitoring service for enterprise customers based on its search technology which weighs results by cross-platform social engagement. Bit.ly joins several other vendors in the real-time search and analytics space including Topsy and Google.

- Google+ Closes in on Twitter
The Google+ network/platform has surpassed the 40 million user mark, inching ever closer to the 100 million active users of Twitter but still quite a distance from Facebook's 800 million users. Revenue was up 33 percent year-over-year, and quarter revenues were just short of $10 billion for Google, but questions remain about its ability to foster social communities.

- Can Anyone Save Yahoo? Comscore Search Data
Comscore reported that Google’s share of the search market increased a half percentage at the expense of Yahoo – which fell to its lowest search volume levels ever. Perhaps an Alibaba acquisition isn’t such a bad idea, after all. While Yahoo! has a strong foothold in the display advertising market, the network might have seen better days.

- Let’s Take it Offline
Mobile payments company Square, which offers apps that allow merchants to process and manage credit card transaction with a swiping device that plugs in to the headset/microphone jack, announced that it is now processing 2$ billion in payments volume per year. Square also announced that it is dropping several requirements for new Swype merchants.

- Jumping on the KickStarter Bandwagon
Crowdfunding service Kickstarter has seen 1 million people sign up and offer financial support for projects listed on its site. Kickstarter also indicated that of those who have backed projects 89% of them have supported at least one idea that was successful.

- Search Ad Spend Rebounds
SEM and software provider Covario released its global spend search ad spend analysis which indicated that PPC spending was up 26 percent from the previous quarter and 24 percent versus the same period last year.

- A Local Vibe from MapQuest
MapQuest unveiled Vibe this week, a local search/mapping tool which identifies neighborhood-level hot spots. MapQuest Vibe profiles more than 50,000 neighborhoods, 27,000 cities and 50,000 hotspots in the U.S., reaching 98 percent of the population.

- Ad Boosters from GreyStripe
Mobile advertising network GreyStripe released several new industry-focused and social ad units this week dubbed Ad Boosters. The customizable “boosters” allows advertisers to direct users to take specific actions. A retail booster, for example, could include a “Find Store” button, a coupon or buy now button. This is somewhat similar to the way that Google has introduced the +1 button on its display ads.

- Foursquare Gets Real with Radar Notifications
It seems as if the hottest new trend on the Web is in real-time data retrieval, and now location-based social media service Foursquare is hopping on the bandwagon. Earlier this week they announced Radar, a new real-time feature that will sends notifications to users when they're close to businesses that fit into their "to-do lists", or any other Foursquare lists to which they've subscribed. This tool will be especially useful for driving relevant customers to local businesses when they're in a city or area that they're not familiar with.

-Location-based Marketing with Hootsuite
HootSuite acquired location-based marketing tool Geotoko this week. This geo-aggregation tool collects audience information from check-in tools like Facebook Places and Foursquare. The integration of this tool with HootSuite will especially help multiple location brick and mortar businesses better understand audiences, based on data such as location, sentiment and demographic. With this data, businesses will be able to reach out to consumers with specific offers, promotions and campaign adjustments.

- Google Commerce Goes Mobile
Just two years after Google Commerce was launched, this week Google announced Google Commerce Search for mobile. According to Google, the launch of Google Commerce Search for mobile came about after consistently finding an increasing number of shopping queries from mobile phones. Timberland is one of the first Google Commerce for Search customers, and claims that since its mobile-optimized website launched, mobile sales have grown 20 times faster than desktop sales.

- LinkedIn Acquires IndexTank

Linked acquired hosted search service IndexTank this week, which will integrate its technology with LinkedIn’s search. IndexTank’s real-time search technology already powers many searches, such as Reddit.com, Twitvid and Spoke. Currently, LinkedIn claims that it will release key components of IndexTank as open source software, which will allow others to run the IndexTank API.

- Microsoft and Skype Seal the Deal
Microsoft finally made it official with video/chat software application provider Skype after being in talks to buy the company since May. The software giant finally closed the deal and purchased Skype for $8.5 billion. For now, Skype will operate as an independent division, with their offices and employees remaining and over time it will be integrated into Microsoft products like Xbox Live and Windows Live.

- Facebook Friendly
Facebook, the reigning King of social media, recently acquireded the startup friend.ly, the company behind a popular social question-and-answer service featured on the social network. Friend.ly will still exist and operate as a standalone service on the site, while the company’s team will begin focusing on new projects at Facebook.