[FAQ] Can we have a tipbot for social network XYZ?
Fellow Reddheads:
Below I provide information on Reddcoin tipbots: what’s the current status of development for each social network; is it feasible; if not, why. I’ll keep updating this post in due course.
Please leave comment if I missed any one.
Regards
laudney
Reddit: fully functional
Twitter: fully functional
Twitch.tv: fully functional
The tipbot already listens in several channels. Check out Team Reddcoin.
Justin.tv: fully functional
The tipbot is not running because no streamer is signed up yet.
IRC: fully functional
Twitch tipbot is based on IRC protocol. So we get IRC tipbots for all IRC channels for free.
Steam: To-do
Need to investigate unofficial implementation of APIs. Extra complexity.
Google+: To-do
Not the most friendly API to implement a tipbot due to lack of direct support for notification of mention, which might be mitigated by search.
Youtube: infeasible
Lack of API support for user comment and notification. Google does plan to further integrate Youtube with Google+ so one day it might become feasible through Google+ APIs.
Facebook: infeasible
Due to strict legal terms and conditions.
Tumblr: infeasible
Extremely limited APIs.
StackOverFlow: difficult
APIs are rich enough to support user comment and notification but notification is restricted to users having already participated in answering a question, which means to receive notification the tipbot must post a comment under every single new question. Also StackOverFlow mods are not friendly to bots.
Whatsapp: infeasible
No official API. Illegal to use any unofficial reverse-engineered APIs.
Sina Weibo: To-do
The most popular Chinese version of Twitter. APIs are also very similar to Twitter’s. Need real-identity verification during registration, especially difficult for foreigners. Low API rate limit. Need to double-check support for Chinese characters (current code base already uses UTF-8).
WeChat: To investigate
The most popular Chinese version of Whatsapp.
Disqus: difficult
Limited support for notification of mention: only users having already made comment on the same post can be mentioned and notified. Disqus does plan to support mention of arbitrary user. No timeline available.
VK: difficult
No support for notification of mention in comment. The list of APIs can be found here