The ski season is slowly winding down, so I’ve had some extra time to work on the API! 
(Ok, maybe one more trip to Heavenly…)
The initial response to the developer preview of Y! Live’s API has been fantastic, and we’ve gotten a ton of great feedback from all of you. We’ve made some changes to the API in response to the things we’ve heard - here are the changes going live late tonight Thursday, March 20th:
- JSON Callback support. When making JSON requests, you can add an optional “callback” parameter to have the output of your request call a Javascript function of your choosing. This helps avoid cross-browser request restrictions. Read more about this parameter on developer.yahoo.com.
- Sorting on the /channel/PERMALINK/broadcasts request. You can now send an optional “sort” parameter with values of ‘recent’, ‘popular’, or ‘random’ to this request to get broadcasts for a specific channel in an order other than oldest first.
- Resource ID type. Due to some internal shuffling, resource ids are now explicitly strings. The only apps that will be affected are ones that are written in a strongly typed language and cast the id fields as integers. Most apps should require no code changes.
Please remember that the API is currently pre-1.0. This kind of feedback is exactly what we’re looking for as we approach a nailed down v1.0 of the API. So please continue to send us feedback/suggestions/complaints about the API to ylive-contact (at) yahoo-inc (dot) com.
Happy hacking!
That’s cool.
I would like to suggest some enhancement:-
1) Is it possible to have an api that returns aggregates? I want all info about a live channel - user info, channel details and broadcast details in one request? Right now, I have to make various requests to aggregate all these data?
2) Is there a way to get geo-location even for users who have not updated their Y! Live profile? I know, it’s privacy concern but probably some way? It would be great to have most of the users update their location?
3) Can you think of any way to open up your Flash Media Server for a few things like event update (channel status, broadcast status, etc)? It would be great to have server pushing data instead of apps pulling? Would help us creating great apps. I can help you with Flash Media Server API thingy, you can even setup a xmpp based API for these things?
RSS/ATOM feed doesn’t make sense for this kind of stuff, where things are changing every second.. However, syndication can still be thought in some way… The way twitter is doing..
4) When can we expect a nice chromeless player? Kindly check out how YouTube doing their chromeless player, they are providing player API (AS/JS) and also taking care of security. It’s actually two swf - api.swf and player.swf; player.swf is exposed (limited way) via api.swf, api.swf allows all domains (*) to cross-script.. If that is done, I can load Y! Live player in my swf and control it the way I want to… currently it doesn’t work (resizing and various issues).
5) This is not related to API, would be great if Y! Live users can associate various other social-network ids with their profile. For example, Twitter details - once Twitter support openID/oAuth (so you don’t have to ask users to save password in Y! DB - password anti-pattern), so whenever a channel goes live - it sends an update “I am live, come and chat with me” ? I see people doing it manually as of today?
If users don’t want to send it automatically, a button in UI (control panel) would be great - that sends an update when clicked?
Thanks
-abdul
thank you for creating such a wonderful site. i was waiting for youtube to create live feeds, but apparently you beat them to it. thank you. my family is able to see me on live feeds now that i’m able to embed the code on my myspace. people keep asking me where they can go to get that feature. i actually was visiting tilly key’s y live site and decided to sign up for it myself. please keep this site going. i miss my family as do they and this is the best way i can keep in touch with them. thanks again.
I love the work being done up at Yahoo Live. This is BOB POPO signing out. yours truly bob popo