Digg Mimics Twitter With Streaming API
In an attempt to revitalize their business and reverse their decline in fortunes, Digg has announced that their API (or Application Programming Interface for you non-geeks) will now enable developers to receive information in near real time.
Today we’re releasing a new API feature which we hope will ease the process of using Digg’s data, and also freeing developers to model and store the data however they want. As such, we’re excited to announce the Digg Streaming API.
Our Streaming API provides any developer with full access to a real-time stream of all submissions, Diggs and comments occurring on our site. You can connect to the stream via client side JavaScript, or you can setup a script to pull all our content into your own databases to expose however you want.
If you’ve used Twitter’s Streaming API then you already understand the opportunity that awaits. If not, we’re pretty sure that if you spend a few minutes playing around with the API that you’ll find your curiosity sparked. (Official Digg Blog)
This is a big gamble for Digg, as the streaming API will probably increase expenses for the company at a time when they are still in the red (financially speaking).
However it could also help the company increase its user base (or at least retain its loyal following) by giving developers the tools to take full advantage of Digg which may result in some interesting third party apps in the future.
Despite the startup’s current misfortunes, Digg is still listed as one of the top 100 web sites in world (according to Quantcast), a position which Digg could leverage in order to attract an army of developers to help the company regain its former glory.
Darnell Clayton is a geek who discovered blogging long before he heard of the word "blog" (he called them "web journals" then). When he is not tweeting, friendfeeding, or blogging about space, he enjoys running, reading and describing himself in third person.