These are the current API offerings:
5 Most Recent Messages
Point your client at this API URI, and have the 5 most recent messages returned:
http://www.upingme.com/api/simple
The server will respond with a list of 5 results like this:
<upingme_package>
<object>
<id>9</id>
<magic_number>an568</magic_number>
<uri>http://www.upingme.com/an568</uri>
<message>I have a new and boxed Dualit toaster to sell with guarantee- an unwanted gift.
I will take €23 cash. You can collect from my Rome office 9 - 5. msg me!</message>
<timestamp>1193664313</timestamp>
<location="Bar Escoba 112 East Vanessa Str Vlissigen"</location>
</object>
...
...
</upingme_package>
Retrieve a Poster's Location
Point your client at this API URI, and have the location of a post returned:
http://www.upingme.com/api/location/a568a
If the post your client tries to retrieve fails, error code '404' is returned:
<upingme_package mode="location">
<location>404</location>
</upingme_package>
If the user has their privacy turned on, you get returned 'nowhere':
<upingme_package mode="location">
<location>Nowhere</location>
<nickname>irdial</nickname>
<icon>http://www.upingme.com/thumbnails/24.jpg</icon>
</upingme_package>
Otherwise, the magic is working:
<upingme_package mode="location">
<location>727 5th ave new York by 10022</location>
<nickname>feral_nutz</nickname>
<timestamp>1196876518</timestamp>
<icon>http://www.upingme.com/thumbnails/1.jpg</icon>
</upingme_package>
and you are returned the poster's location, the time they set it, and the URI to their icon (icon feature is disabled).
JSON Objects
We now offer some new objects. Point your client at these API URI
they all return, as you would expect, in this form:
[ { "grouped" : null,
"magic_number" : "b9pem",
"owner_location" : "41°N 93°W",
"reply_text" : "70s Chevelle, priced to sell, $30k, you have to pay, drive it well.",
"sms_replies" : null,
"unixtime" : "1307869893",
"url" : "http://www.upingme.com/post/b9pem"
},
{ "grouped" : null,
"magic_number" : "ztskm",
"owner_location" : "41°N 93°W",
"reply_text" : "The anonymous person who posted this is not a user... use your branes!",
"sms_replies" : null,
"unixtime" : "1307784663",
"url" : "http://www.upingme.com/post/ztskm"
},
{ "grouped" : null,
"magic_number" : "qqj9h",
"owner_location" : "Bar Escoba Brompton Road SW3",
"reply_text" : "Im as mad as hell and im not going to take this anymore!",
"sms_replies" : null,
"unixtime" : "1307639962",
"url" : "http://www.upingme.com/post/qqj9h"
},
{ "grouped" : null,
[...]
"41°N 93°W" means 'null' or not set.
If the location is set, it will be a string, ready for you to geocode with your own resources.
There are obviously some cool things you can do with these Upingme Packages, like squirting the 'location' information into an online mapping service to show where Upingme things are taking place.
There are also some obvious cool things that we have not yet implemented, like getting the location of a message from its Magic Number.... or adding a post. We have just re-written alot of the Upingme back end, and have just added the Social Media Medicine engine (if you are reading this, you are probably one of the first people to find out about our new service) and the entire thing should be API like, with clean urls etc; once we have a good sized dataset to work with, we will concentrate on rolling out these must do API calls and (almost) anything else devs ask us for. Email us if there are any calls you would like to see in particular.
The Upingme API is in development. Whose isn't? We are adding calls so that you can retrieve more data from the system. It should all be RESTful.