Service development: Classmates, VKontakte, ethics vs. aesthetics
Fortunately, during the two previous weeks, we had no time for the blog. We worked quite closely on connecting PostOK to Odnoklassniki, adding a new mechanism for publishing MMS on VKontakte, facilitating the registration procedure and improving the usability of the service . Almost everything was fraught with difficulties: technical, resource, and even moral and ethical. But first things first.
It is gratifying that according to the result of the previous post and the discussion that followed, the problem with Odnoklassniki began to be solved. For this special thanks to the guys who worked with us on the side of the social network. However, not everything was smooth and, in our opinion, there are features in the Odnoklassniki API that make it limitedly applicable for some types of applications, which is discussed further.
We published the first MMS message in the classmates on the evening of the same day, when the social network representative left his first comment under the previous post. We shook hands and even changed the interface of the main page of an unauthorized service area, including the mention of this social network everywhere:
')
But, after 30 minutes, they were forced to roll everything back, because MMS ceased to be published. The social network did not accept a second-level authorization key. The problem was solved only after a week and a half of intimate communication. In the dry residue:
1. The Odnoklassniki API has a three-step (now precisely working) authorization structure for third-party services:
a) The third-party service has two keys for performing actions on the profile of a particular user.
b) According to “Key 1”, an application opens a 30-minute window to perform an action (actions) in a specific user profile
c) Using the “Key 2” third-party service can get a new “Key 1” to perform actions during the new half-hour window
2. The Odnoklassniki API does not imply the unlimited authorization of the user of the service in the social network. After 30 days, the authorization falls off and the user needs to re-enter the PostOK admin area and re-authorize Odnoklassniki, which is not quite convenient for creating “mobile” applications.
Bottom line: The Odnoklassniki API in our subjective rating of convenience firmly fell into second place after the Facebook API.
Anyone who used the PostOK service probably encountered the inconvenience of publishing MMS messages on VK. API restrictions do not allow the user to do something on-line. The user must be authorized on the site and confirm everything with "hands". This is typical of VKontakte in principle. It is difficult to say what the reasons for this approach are: whether it is safe or unwilling to allow third-party mobile services like foursquare to your site - the answer is not obvious.
In particular, for PostOK users, the feature described turns out to be that their MMS messages first get into the MMS gateway application (losing the text part on the way), and then the user must log in to their account on VKontakte and allow them to get into the album. O_o
Not surprisingly, we had a huge stream of technical support letters asking us to do something about it. “To hell!”, We thought, having surrendered under the onslaught of users ’letters and started working on the direct posting of MMS messages on VKontakte, bypassing the strange interface.
The result of the weekly work was the engine that uses the username and password from VKontakte entered by the user to directly publish MMS messages. Messages fall on the user's wall, while the text part of the MMS is saved and PostOK becomes an extremely convenient and popular way to keep a mobile blog.
The disadvantages are also obvious: reauthorization to PostOK when changing the password on the social network and the psychological barrier to the trust to the service. That is why we introduced a new way of publishing in addition to the existing one, and not replaced it. In addition, special attention is paid to information security. Personal data is encrypted and stored on a separate server that is not visible from the outside.
If you are interested, you can already test it.
According to the results of early articles about our service, the registration mechanism of users has been subjected to quite a lot of criticism. It was not transparent, not logical, overloaded with the collection of secondary data about the user. But now everything has changed. To start publishing MMS on any social networks you just need to enter the mobile phone number from which the publication will be made:
and authorize social networks:
Actually, now nothing else is needed so that your every message gets into all authorized social networks. Everything can be with a clear conscience to focus on developing mobile applications.
Classmates. Continuation
It is gratifying that according to the result of the previous post and the discussion that followed, the problem with Odnoklassniki began to be solved. For this special thanks to the guys who worked with us on the side of the social network. However, not everything was smooth and, in our opinion, there are features in the Odnoklassniki API that make it limitedly applicable for some types of applications, which is discussed further.
We published the first MMS message in the classmates on the evening of the same day, when the social network representative left his first comment under the previous post. We shook hands and even changed the interface of the main page of an unauthorized service area, including the mention of this social network everywhere:
')
But, after 30 minutes, they were forced to roll everything back, because MMS ceased to be published. The social network did not accept a second-level authorization key. The problem was solved only after a week and a half of intimate communication. In the dry residue:
1. The Odnoklassniki API has a three-step (now precisely working) authorization structure for third-party services:
a) The third-party service has two keys for performing actions on the profile of a particular user.
b) According to “Key 1”, an application opens a 30-minute window to perform an action (actions) in a specific user profile
c) Using the “Key 2” third-party service can get a new “Key 1” to perform actions during the new half-hour window
2. The Odnoklassniki API does not imply the unlimited authorization of the user of the service in the social network. After 30 days, the authorization falls off and the user needs to re-enter the PostOK admin area and re-authorize Odnoklassniki, which is not quite convenient for creating “mobile” applications.
Bottom line: The Odnoklassniki API in our subjective rating of convenience firmly fell into second place after the Facebook API.
VKontakte: ethics vs. aesthetics
Anyone who used the PostOK service probably encountered the inconvenience of publishing MMS messages on VK. API restrictions do not allow the user to do something on-line. The user must be authorized on the site and confirm everything with "hands". This is typical of VKontakte in principle. It is difficult to say what the reasons for this approach are: whether it is safe or unwilling to allow third-party mobile services like foursquare to your site - the answer is not obvious.
In particular, for PostOK users, the feature described turns out to be that their MMS messages first get into the MMS gateway application (losing the text part on the way), and then the user must log in to their account on VKontakte and allow them to get into the album. O_o
Not surprisingly, we had a huge stream of technical support letters asking us to do something about it. “To hell!”, We thought, having surrendered under the onslaught of users ’letters and started working on the direct posting of MMS messages on VKontakte, bypassing the strange interface.
The result of the weekly work was the engine that uses the username and password from VKontakte entered by the user to directly publish MMS messages. Messages fall on the user's wall, while the text part of the MMS is saved and PostOK becomes an extremely convenient and popular way to keep a mobile blog.
The disadvantages are also obvious: reauthorization to PostOK when changing the password on the social network and the psychological barrier to the trust to the service. That is why we introduced a new way of publishing in addition to the existing one, and not replaced it. In addition, special attention is paid to information security. Personal data is encrypted and stored on a separate server that is not visible from the outside.
If you are interested, you can already test it.
Registration on the service
According to the results of early articles about our service, the registration mechanism of users has been subjected to quite a lot of criticism. It was not transparent, not logical, overloaded with the collection of secondary data about the user. But now everything has changed. To start publishing MMS on any social networks you just need to enter the mobile phone number from which the publication will be made:
and authorize social networks:
Actually, now nothing else is needed so that your every message gets into all authorized social networks. Everything can be with a clear conscience to focus on developing mobile applications.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/116895/
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