October 1, 2008

Netflix API Available

Netflix has opened up an API to the public for developing applications!

"On behalf of the Netflix API team, I’m very excited to announce the release of the Netflix API and to launch this site for our developer community. We have been impressed with the applications developers have managed to build using our RSS feeds or by screen-scraping the web site, so we can’t wait to see what you’ll do with a supported API!

The Netflix API includes a JavaScript API, REST API and ATOM feeds. Use of the API is free and we even allow commercial use.

Web applications can use the JavaScript API to easily integrate basic Netflix service capabilities, such as allowing a subscriber to add a title to his queue without visiting the Netflix web site or start watching a title instantly."

Sign up for the API here

It will be very interesting to see all the Flash/Flex/AIR apps arriving soon :)

I hope more companies keep following suit like Google, Amazon, and now Netflix.

Cheers!

March 12, 2008

YouTube APIs and Tools

"Anything you can do on YouTube, you can now do from your own website..."

Some features noted:
  • Chromeless Player
  • Flash API
  • JavaScript API
  • GData API Access

Watch yourself!

February 25, 2008

Revisited :: Where is the Web Services Support in Flash CS3?

I posted earlier regarding this isse here.

Approximately 7-8 months ago, John Dowdell, was kind enough to at least respond regarding the issue .

The best part of his response was, "This documentation is in the final review stages and should be on the website towards mid-summer. My apologies for not knowing this context previously, but that's the scoop -- web services weren't easy-peasy out-of-the-box with CS3, but they should be so once again soon, once we generalize the component-creation process. Expect docs up on the website soon."

I could live with that, summer, no big deal however Summer '07 has come and gone and we are now moving towards Spring '08 without any mention from Adobe about an update to include Web Service support of some kind in Flash CS3.

Dissapointed to say the least.

We as flash developers are not without hope thanks entirely to the Adobe Flash/Flex community as a whole. There are now a few possible solutions to get Web Services to come through to the Flash CS3 authoring environment:

Wellconsidered has built a Flash CS3 Component that you can include in your library and access services much like the old As2 component, very easy to use however it has not been fully tested as stated by the author.

Sander Wichers has developed a method by which you can get compiled Flex libraries accessible from your flash library, very interesting workaround and worth the read.

RIA Forge has a post with access to a Subervsion Library which I have not tried out yet.

Carlo Alducente has developed a class as well.

My suggestion is to try all the methods above to see what works and what doesn't.

Again, thanks to all the developers who still recoginize the need for Web Services access in Flash as well as Flex.

It would be nice to hear from Adobe on the continued intention and or the abandonement on this issue.

Cheers,

Des