To help make the process of adding interests to the user’s interest list easier, a number of APIs from other websites will be considered to fetch the user’s interest information if they are members of the other websites.
To save users time and the trouble of registering, Facebook authentication can be used to allow users to sign into Hive using their Facebook account. When signing in, Hive will request access to certain information about the user from Facebook, and the user must accept this to proceed. Follow this link for more information: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/web/#login
- Facebook Platform uses OAuth 2.0 for authentication and authorisation.
- The JavaScript SDK should be used to access Facebook’s API calls.
- Hive must be registered with Facebook to receive an App ID which must be used to authenticate the website.
- Using the “scope” attribute, Hive can request permission to access certain data from the user’s Facebook account – by default, Hive will receive the user’s basic information (name, user picture, gender, and locale, but these will not be saved without permission after login since they are optional details for the user to give), but it will also request the user’s email address using the “email” property, and the user’s likes (interests) using “user_likes”.
- When the user initially signs in via Facebook, they will be presented with the fetched list of “likes” and asked to review and remove any that are not appropriate since some “likes” may not be an interest.
Spotify
Users of Spotify have a “Top List”, a feature on Spotify which lists a user’s top ten music albums and artists they listen to. Using the Spotify API, Hive can fetch the Information on the user’s favourite music. Additionally, a user’s Spotify music library can be fetched, with unique artists or bands added to their interest list. More information is available at: https://developer.spotify.com/technologies/apps/docs/beta/77bb3cd334.html
The API is known as the Spotify Apps AP and uses HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript, so it should be able to be integrated within Hive. An existing Spotify account is required, and it must be upgraded to a developer account. An App Concept Submission Form must be approved by Spotify before work can begin.
Netflix
The Netflix API has no call to retrieve a user’s favourite/most highly rated movies, only a user’s rental history. However, the API is able to give a user’s recommended movies, so this list of recommended movies could be a factor used to aid Hive’s own recommendations. Additionally, this list could be compared with other user’s lists for similarity which could increase the chances they are recommended to each other to become friends. More information is at: http://developer.netflix.com/docs/REST_API_Reference#0_53250
Hive needs to be registered with the Netflix Developer Network for a consumer key and shared secret. User login is done using OAuth authorisation.
