FourSquare Brand Use Clarifications - foursquare

An account manager that I work with has come up to me and insists that the Foursquare API can be used to "checkin" to a website, so basically saying one could checkin to www.somewebsite.com (this differs from checking into a venue via a website). Admittedly the language on the brand page creative use FAQ on foursquare.com reads a little odd:
Building “check-ins” into your own application or website
Has the FS API been used to do such a thing? I couldn't see how, or why FourSquare would allow this capability. I do see they have Brand pages which looks nothing more that what Twitter might accomplish.
On another note, where does someone contact FS regarding a branded promotion like the one they have done for SuperBowl Sunday? There is nothing on the site to let someone know where to contact them.

Foursquare check-ins are to venues, and venues always have a physical location associated with them. So no, you can't check in to www.somewebsite.com. What you can do is use the API to check in from www.somewebsite.com.
To contact foursquare about partnership opportunities, e-mail partners#foursquare.com

The foursquare API is for checking into locations. What the FAQ is telling you is that you can make an application that allows people to check in to a location from that application.
Let me give you a potential example.
A restaurant has a loyalty club where you register online and can check into the restaurant when you arrive, for coupons. But the restaurant also allows you to link your restaurant account with your foursquare account. So the next time you show up at the restaurant, you enter your phone number and presto, you're also checked into foursquare.
It might not be a great application, but it's an example of something that could be done and the type of application to which the FAQ was referring, not checking into a website itself.
as for the branding question, check out their Merchant Platform page.

Related

Is sharing Google Analytics tracking id safe?

I currently creating a cross platform desktop application using Electron. I wish to add analytics to view user metrics. When I try to find for existing packages that provides metrics info, I found electron-ga.
The package uses GA to track user metrics and to set it up I need to include GA tracking id in my app. My question is, if I include the tracking id in an electron app and distribute my app, everyone can look at the tracking id and steal it right?
I would like to know if using this method is right?
Thank you.
It will be anyway publicly available (e.g. you can find the ga ID through the source code of any site that uses Google Analytics).
It can get very bad if someone wants to harm you, as he can just plug your ga ID in any of his sites unless you are prepared and protected.
What you can do to be sure that even if someone has your ga ID, he can't make use of it, is the folowing.
Go to your Google Analytics profile and create a custom filter. Choose "Hostname" for the filter field and fill the filter pattern with your site (e.g. mysite.com). Don't forget to use the "\" before of any ".".
This way, only this specific address will be able to make use of your ga ID.
That is ok. You could see many people push the ga id at website or app.
It is necessary. If you don't add tracking id to ga code. Then you cannot track user.

Instagram API / Submission Review / Issue with Video Screencast shared on public network

We would like to use the Instagram API to harvest comments from a Brand page into a CRM Solution.
From this CRM Solution, agents will consult and possibly reply to Instagram Posts.
I think the most appropriate use case for what we plan to do is this one:
"My product helps brands and advertisers understand, manage their audience and media rights"
Here my question:
During the submission review, we need to join a Video Screencast of our project.
This part is really annoying for us as:
We don't want to share on a public platform (like youtube) the details of our project and CRM solution
Is there any workaround to this ?
You don't need to "join" video screencast, you need to submit a video of product functionality (use quicktime screen record), upload the video on google drive and share the link, only instagram will be seeing it, only the people u send link will be able to get to the video, it will not be public when sharing from Google Drive, there are varrious settings while sharing. You need to show login flow and all API functionality of app. This worked for me. The usecase looks correct for your app.

Instagram API Permissions Rejected for iOS App to Pull Public Content Data

My iOS app needs to use Instagram API to load some images, user feedback based on geo location. I requested public_content permissions from Instagram team but got rejected with explanations below even though I filled out as much info as possible. Note I have my app in development only and website looks very minimal but some designs and lots of description was submitted for review.
How to resolve this issue of getting these basic permissions? I googled and I notice this is a common problem.
General issues: Invalid Use Case: The use case descrbied in your submission notes, screencast and website is not a valid use case that
we allow on our Platform. Please see our Permissions Review and valid
use cases description (https://www.instagram.com/developer/review/)
for more information.
public_content: This permission (public_content) does not support the use case you described in your submission notes, screencast and
website. Please review Login Permissions
(http://instagram.com/developer/authorization/) for a comprehensive
list of permissions and valid use cases.
Perhaps this helps. I have tried two times but our app was declined. I will write the submission text one more time. I also want to go more into detail as the new FAQ says that Instagram expects a very detailed submision.
Cheers, Christian
FAQ
My submission was rejected but it was a valid use case. What should I do?
A common reason for rejecting a submission is that we do not have enough information to make an assessment of your app. This can happen if your submission was too short, if it missed important information, if you did not provide a good screencast, your website is not working, etc. Before you submit for review again, make sure to provide a long and clear explanation of what your app does and how you use every permission. Make sure also to provide a video screencast and to follow all our Platform Policies.
What should I write in the submission?
The submission should be long enough for us to understand exactly what your app does and why you need the permissions you are asking for. If your submission is too short or does not explain all parts of your integration, then we may not be able to understand and approve your app. For example, your submission should explain what does your app or company do, which of the approved use cases your integration falls into, who will be using your app, how do your user authenticate with your app, how you use the API to power your integration, how does your product use the data acquired from Instagram, etc.
What should I show in the video screencast?
The video screencast is a very important part of a submission and cannot be omitted. Please make sure that the video clearly shows how your application works, including any Instagram login experience and the usage of every permission you are requesting. Since your app may still be in sandbox mode, you can use data from sandbox users to showcase the integration.
My company is working with multiple clients, should I submit one app per project?
No, we do not approve apps that are created for one-off projects (e.g. a hashtag campaign, an event, a website). You should use a single client_id across all your integrations.
Can I revoke a submission if I made a mistake?
You can't cancel a submission that is in progress. You will need to wait until the submission has been reviewed before you can start a new one.

Very simple user validation

I'm making an app and I plan to have some cloud happening with it, but I do not want to create a user data base and have the users need to remember their username and password.
Since it will be distributed through the chrome app store it's basically guaranteed that the user will have a google account. All I want to do is:
Get the user's email through the google account stuff. If I get it through there, well then their email is all the authentication I need to get that user's data.
If I end up putting the application on something other than chrome browser, I'll just have the user use their email to request a validation link, and then I'll send them a validation code for that account, they put the validation code into the application, it takes that as a verified user, so that's secure and easy as well.
EDIT: I'm looking into this. So far I have:
OAuth 2
Google API
But I have a problem that I don't know what to set as my javascript origins in the Google API and there isn't too much info on this abroad. If anyone can tell me what javascript origins I need to set for a chrome extension to access google api it would be a great help.
PS: Thanks for down vote, this is why I love resorting to stack exchange.
Hmmm, I think the only reason this was voted down is the fact that this question may be been asked somewhere on the site already (but I'll help you and give give a 1up).
So what you are wanting to use the Google OpenID. You will have to register your application with Google so they can provide OAuth2 tokens for you application. I have not done this with Google but with other services and it is pretty easy, just search around.
In terms of obtaining OAuth2 for your application in the chrome extension - this can be a pain since the extension is sandboxed and Google's example uses OAuth not OAuth2.
Here is solution I host on GitHub for this - I also use this in my extension GitHub Repositories:
https://github.com/jjNford/oauth2-chrome-extension
Hope this helps in some way. Don't get discourages with StackOverflow, it is a great resource with many great contributors.
Good luck!
I had to up vote you too as I'm tracking down a related issue so here is what I've found that may help.
According to these directions - http://code.google.com/p/google-api-javascript-client/wiki/Authentication - "In the "Authorized JavaScript Origins" box, enter the protocol and domain for your site." This should be the protocol (http:// or https://) followed by any optional subdomain followed by your domain name and no trailing slash. Nothing after the domain name.
This prevents certain kind of security attacks, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same_origin_policy.
There are some related questions here that I found that may help:
Problems with Google Picker API and selecting Google Drive items and google apis console 'Javascript origins'.
Now with all of that said, I am still trying to track down what values to put in there for one of my sites hosted as a Google Site, as none of the obvious values are working for me. So there may be some subtlety there that I have missed in this explanation.

Can a Foursquare checkin function be added onto a website?

Can a Foursquare checkin function be added onto a website?
Although you can provide check-in capability on a web site, please use caution and realize that it may be difficult to comply with the appropriate Foursquare API requirements.
(Poster amelvin is correct that the API you need is at http://developer.foursquare.com/)
However keep in mind:
You need to find an accurate representation of the user's lat/long in order to create a check-in with the API
You should not spoof the location
You may be dependent on using modern browser's location capabilities
Use the foursquare api to add foursquare checkin to your site.

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