Using Instagram's API, is there any way to request a list or count of an application's registered users?
Instagram's real-time subscriptions can send notifications whenever a registered user posts to their feed, but I haven't found a way to get a list of those users, or even a count. This is easy enough to store server-side, but seems like something which should be discoverable.
Your Question
Using Instagram's API, is there any way to request a list of an application's registered users?
A quick search yielded no results for such a functionality. This make sense, though, since Instagram wouldn't want to open up all its users to any app designer.
Your App
If you want the number of users using your app, then you can easily track this yourself.
Instagram App
As mentioned before, Instagram probably won't provide even basic count information about its registered users. Presumably, this is valuable information.
Your Example
Instagram's real-time subscriptions can send notifications whenever a registered user posts to their feed...
This is true, but with very limited scope. The subscriptions below are based on users who are using your app or other simple criteria such as tags or geographic data.
Users: receive notifications when users who have registered with your application post new photos.
Tags: receive notifications when a new photo is tagged with tags of your choosing
Locations: receive notifications when new photos are posted and tagged with a specific location
Geographies: receive notifications when a new photos are posted in an arbitrary geographical location as defined by a center point
and radius
As far as I have found this far there is no IG API, however as already indicated you can keep track on your app. HOWEVER, what has not been pointed out is that you won't be made aware if users terminate their account or revoke your app so the count's might be a little off. (or worse if you didnt start keeping track since the public launch of your app)
You could test on a periodic basis if you still have access, but that would require additional code, and a lot of API calls if you app has a lot of users. I hope that IG will add this function at some point.
Related
I'm trying to send a notification out using Google Chats. But I have a few problems with the documentation I've been able to find:
It requires me to have a paid service account, which I do not have, and will not be getting
It requires using a chat bot, which (in my understanding) needs to be added to a room, and cannot just send out messages
Chat bots can't send out messages directly to personal accounts?
I'm already using Google OAuth2 authentication to access another Google API, so I'd like to use a Google API to send messages directly from the authenticated account. How would I do that?
So far:
All the documentation I can find is about making a chat bot.
I've considered some alternatives to sending out messages, but due to corporate device restrictions that will not be changing, google chats is my best option.
At the moment what you're trying to do is not possible, for multiple reasons.
You may know this already, but Google Chat is an upgrade to their old "Classic Hangouts" chat. In Google's own words, this is focused on enterprise (i.e. paid) accounts. While personal accounts are also able to upgrade and get some of the benefits, their documentation shows that Google Chat for personal accounts is very similar to the old Hangouts and most of the new features are meant for the paid accounts. This also includes the use of bots.
As you've observed, the Chat API currently only has methods to create and manage bots. There are no methods to send messages as your own account. This could be to prevent spam or because their Chat API is relatively new, since the Classic Hangouts did not have an API, and Chat hasn't fully replaced it yet. Even then, given that Chat is "enterprise-focused", it is uncertain whether or not personal accounts would get access to any new API features.
You could try to post feedback on their issue tracker or request the feature to see if you get a response, but for an immediate solution you may want to just use the Gmail API to send a regular email or reconsider the other alternatives that you had in mind.
I'm just wondering if there is some service out there, where I can send an e-mail to with an image attached and that service posts this image to my Instagram account?
If you check out the API endpoints you can see that they are quite limited. Facebook made changes to Instagram's API last summer which did away with lots of features; having an endpoint for posting may have been one of them. Either way, it is no longer around, and seeing as Facebook does not want to encourage using their services outside of their own sites and apps, it is unlikely you'd be able to find the service you are looking for.
I am trying to collect all media that use a specific hashtag from Instagram to run a hashtag contest for an event.
I have tried the Instagram API and I can collect the media through it, while in sandbox mode, but only the public ones. I want to be able to collect also those belonging to PRIVATE users that I already follow.
If my application passes the review process, will I be able to see the media that people I follow have posted? (like on the official Instagram APP?) Has the review process indeed paused due to the latest news?
Is there any 3rd party APP that has already been reviewed or any other solution that allows me to access the private data?
I just want to check for media that use a specific hashtag every 15-60 seconds and save them to a database based on submission time.
Edit: Another option would be to publish a minimal application that only reads the users' self media. This way everyone who participates would need to provide access to my Application and then I would be able to verify if they have posted using the hashtag.
My main concerns are:
Are applications requiring only the basic scope reviewed?
Can an application like this pass review? In the API terms it states they do not accept apps for one-off projects (like a campaign)*
Instagram is not accepting any new apps that use the public_content permission for review. So you won't be able to get your app out of Sandbox mode if you are using that permission. There are a few 3rd party apps that have been granted permission for that, but even they will stop working when the public_content permission is deprecated in December 2018.
As per https://instagram.com/developer and https://www.instagram.com/developer/changelog
Another option would be to use something like the hashtag campaign feature from SnapWidget that could be used to create a contest.
I am developing a new feature, which will listen to tip notifications on venues, and I am having trouble to test it.
As far as I could check, to create a venue, and subscribe it on my foursquare app, I need to pay.
Is there any alternative to simulate or test, tip notifications?
On the app there is a test button, that only send checkin notifications.
I need to test it on dev environment before sending an untested code to production.
You can only get venue notifications for venues that you are a manager of.
See info on the venue push API here. https://developer.foursquare.com/overview/realtime
This API is designed for applications whose users are managers of
venues, allowing the application to get a real-time view of activity
at their venues. The Venue Push API will push to your application
content from venues managed by any of your application's authorized
users (or at a home venue that was created by one of your
application's authorized users). Supported venue content are
check-ins, likes, tips, and photos at the venue.
It's important to stress that in order for your app to see pushes for
a venue, at least one of this venue's managers must have authorized
use of your app, otherwise you may see “Your app can't see pushes from
that venue” errors.
After exchanging several emails with api#foursquare.com, they set me as a manager of a venue I created on http://foursquare.com/add-place, and finally I could move on with my tests.
I strongly recommend to Foursquare to create some kind of test for all possible Real Time API notifications, or create some kind of sandbox.
Thanks.
The facebook chat api is a power tool. From a purely technically point of view, it definitely does more than its predecessor of private messages in the Graph API.
This brings up a question of where Facebook is drawing the line of abuse of its chat api.
So here's how I'm planning to use the Facebook chat api for my app.
The app is an event planning app that lets users invite their friends to an event. Other than sending SMS, and emails to notify the guests, the most reliable way is to send invitations through the list of facebook friends. And let's face it, sometimes you may not have the person's phone number in your contact book, and you definitely don't remember most of their emails, so facebook is your only source for reaching them.
So I need a solution to send invitations to the guests. Here are my requirements and conditions:
The guest is a facebook friend of the user
There's no way of obtaining the guest's email (unless the user enters it) or phone number (ie. sms is not an option)
Each guest must receive a link that is unique to him/her
No one else should be able to obtain this link (ie. the message shouldn't be seen publicly)
It must not require the user's interaction to send these invitations (imagine having the user confirm a facebook post 10 times for the 10 facebook friends he's inviting). The invitation must be sent automatically.
Here's the obstacle. Facebook had revoked the functionality to send private message recently (I was able to have my facebook friends send me private messages via an app just over a month ago, not anymore). However, I discover that I could do so using Facebook Chat API.
This seems to be a grey area, my app is using the chat api for the sole purpose of helping the users notify their friends of their event invitation. There's no intention of abuse (such as mass messaging everyone of the user's friends with a link to my APP/website). Is Facebook going to hunt me down and revoke my App's privilege to use Facebook's API?
Can anyone shed some light on whether my intended usage of the API is an abuse or is it legitimate? If it is not legitimate, what are your suggestions.
I'd recommend using core functionality wherever possible here. For example, you could utilise the Facebook 'Event' object and the Graph API to create invite-only events and to invite individual friends of your app's users. This would deliver the same functionality without the need for nonce-based invite URLs and possible misuse of the Chat API. Take a look at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/event/#invited for details.