sharebro.org

Actually, my first question is, how does the "Share" button work now (or did work before last week)? It seems it added a tag called "broadcast" but I've also seen references to a tag named "broadcast-friends" -- is that real, and what would it mean semantically? And is "tag" the same thing as "label"?

Also, what's the best way to find out the list of "People I Follow" i.e. users whose shared feeds I (used to) see in e.g. Comment View?

Anyway, please check out the site and send any questions to the google groups "google-reader-diaspora" (for a general "what now?" audience) or "sharebro" (which is more specifically about development on sharebro.org) or to me personally.

Sorry for these noob questions, I haven't pored over the archives sufficiently and I'd like to get things going before they shut down sharing in the API like they did in the app.

- A

Alex Chaffee

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Nov 13, 2011, 12:41:12 PM11/13/11

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Sharebro Update: I've managed to use the API to recreate your "People You Follow" list inside Reader (renamed "Shares" for lexical parsimony) and I'm collaborating with a the developer of a JS userscript that re-adds a "Share" . Please check out http://sharebro.org if this intrigues you.

I have a few API questions I'll post as different threads, but my big question is: what is the fate of the "broadcast" state? Currently it still works via the API and even via the Reader UI. YouTube Favorites, for instance, still show up on a user's "http://www.google.com/reader/view/user/1234567890/state/com.google/broadcast" feed, and inside the UI the items show up attributed to "[pic] shared by [name]". Many mobile apps and userscripts are still using it.

But I've heard rumors that the broadcast state will be going away soon. Is there any official or even well-sourced information about its fate? Some RSS Readers are dropping shares altogether (e.g. Reeder, FeedDemon); others are hoping it will remain; and lots of userscripts are popping up and they seem to work for now, but at some point are they all going to break?

Any info (or the fact that there is no solid info) would be appreciated.

Thanks -

- Alex

Alex Chaffee

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Nov 13, 2011, 12:49:32 PM11/13/11

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OK, I found this, which answers my most important question:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/fougrapi/MzljxPKXKZ0/jP0i9DqBrpkJ

"Basically anything to do with sharing (broadcast tag), liking or friends is going away. The API calls will still succeed even after the social features are gone from our UI, but eventually write requests will start to fail (at the same time as Google Buzz going read-only)."

Mihai Parparita

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Nov 13, 2011, 1:57:30 PM11/13/11

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Things have changed a little bit since then, write requests will most likely still work. However, there may be a period of instability for a few days after Buzz goes read-only. Sorry to be vague, but schedules/code is still up in the air. I'll give an update once I know better what will happen.

Mihai

mighty coco

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Nov 13, 2011, 2:16:28 PM11/13/11

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Hi Mihai,

Amazing news! Thanks for the notice.

Cheers, Arne
Sent from my Windows Phone 7

From: Mihai Parparita
Sent: 13.11.2011 19:57
To: foug...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: sharebro.org

Mihai Parparita

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Nov 21, 2011, 2:44:33 AM11/21/11

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We've severed the Reader/Buzz dependency, which means that shares and
comments should keep working even after Buzz goes read-only. The only
change is that new comments cannot be added to older shared items (in
general, look for the "commentState": "VIEWER_CANNOT_COMMENT" property
in the response to know whether comments can be added).

Mihai

Alex Chaffee

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Nov 21, 2011, 11:05:00 AM11/21/11

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On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 11:44 PM, Mihai Parparita <mih...@google.com> wrote:
> We've severed the Reader/Buzz dependency, which means that shares and
> comments should keep working even after Buzz goes read-only. The only
> change is that new comments cannot be added to older shared items (in
> general, look for the "commentState": "VIEWER_CANNOT_COMMENT" property
> in the response to know whether comments can be added).
>
> Mihai

Hooray! (I think...)

So the Google Reader UI still won't have a share button, but other
apps can use the API to share and unshare using the broadcast tag like
before?

Likewise, the Google Reader app won't show comments or allow people to
add them, but comments will be available for API clients?

I just hacked (and I do mean hacked) a solution to mark an item with
the broadcast state (aka Share) using Send To. If you want to hear all
the hoops I had to jump through, let me know... the code will be
posted on github soon, and the feature will be available via
sharebro.org, hopefully sometime today.

It would have been much easier if Send To links could include the
google item id, not just a url pointing to the original blog page. Not
sure if you have the mojo to add ${item-id} to the Send To variable
set, but I'm just sayin'. :-)

(Much easier still if the Google Reader UI still had a Share button,
and not a new button named Share that actually means "Send To Google
Plus".)

- A

--
Alex Chaffee - al...@stinky.com
http://alexchaffee.com
http://twitter.com/alexch

Mihai Parparita

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Nov 21, 2011, 1:17:58 PM11/21/11

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On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 8:05 AM, Alex Chaffee <al...@stinky.com> wrote:

So the Google Reader UI still won't have a share button, but other
apps can use the API to share and unshare using the broadcast tag like
before?

Yes.

Likewise, the Google Reader app won't show comments or allow people to
add them, but comments will be available for API clients?

Yes.

It would have been much easier if Send To links could include the
google item id, not just a url pointing to the original blog page. Not
sure if you have the mojo to add ${item-id} to the Send To variable
set, but I'm just sayin'. :-)

I'll see what I can do.

Mihai

Mariano Kamp

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Dec 13, 2011, 2:51:52 PM12/13/11

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This sounds interesting Mihai.

Before I now jump in and partially reimplement the functionality that I recently ripped out, could you give me an idea on how stable the current decision will be? I am not complaining, it's nice that you listened, but I would like to get a feeling if it is worth the time ;) If it is not on the GR interface I suspect it is not a high priority for you guys and just fear that it gets the same treatment as the diff api call that told me what articles read/starred/etc. tags got deleted and that was later on silently removed after I spent a lot of time dealing with it. Again, not complaining, I know this is an unofficial API, but any information on the stability of the current stance would be helpful.

How would you manage your share bros in the Google Reader web interface?

Share with comment would also be available then?

Btw. How come you're still active here? Once again, not complaining ;)

Best, Mariano

Mihai Parparita

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Dec 13, 2011, 6:02:27 PM12/13/11

to foug...@googlegroups.com, Alex Chaffee

On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Mihai Parparita <mih...@google.com> wrote:

It would have been much easier if Send To links could include the
google item id, not just a url pointing to the original blog page. Not
sure if you have the mojo to add ${item-id} to the Send To variable
set, but I'm just sayin'. :-)

I'll see what I can do.

I forgot to mention this earlier, but the ${item-id} placeholder is supported now,

Mihai

Mihai Parparita

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Dec 13, 2011, 6:11:30 PM12/13/11

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On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Mariano Kamp <marian...@gmail.com> wrote:

Before I now jump in and partially reimplement the functionality that I recently ripped out, could you give me an idea on how stable the current decision will be?

Unfortunately I can't make any promises. Generally, the fancier the functionality, the more likely it is to be unsupported (e.g. comments on shared items are fancy, basic public shared tags with no per-group ACLs are not fancy).

How would you manage your share bros in the Google Reader web interface?

There'll be no management in the Reader Web UI. It's also likely that all of the management API calls (i.e. /api/0/friend/edit) will also go away at some point. Apps that want to use this functionality should do subscription management themselves (by subscribing/unsubscribing users from shared tag streams).

Share with comment would also be available then?

Share with note will probably be going away too.

Btw. How come you're still active here? Once again, not complaining ;)

Selfish reasons. I still use Reader, by staying involved I can fix my own bugs :)

Mihai

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