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Ravi Suhag
Medium API β€” Official Medium API
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Replies
Ryan Hoover
@Besvinick nailed it: It feels like Medium's on the verge of breaking out beyond its tech roots.
Ryan Hoover
Congrats, @majelbstoat! I've been wondering when/if Medium was going to release an API. Are there any use cases or examples of how it might be used?
katie zhu
@rrhoover we've partnered with some other writing apps to build integrations for medium, so things like offline writing are now possible. we've also launched an IFTTT channel https://ifttt.com/medium which has some cool use cases too (save new beyonce gifs to medium drafts, v useful.) but you can also do things like connect to the sunlight foundation and leverage medium's open licensing to publish bills that are signed into law.
Jamie Talbot
@rrhoover A good deal of the credit is also due to @ktzhu and @kylehardgrave, plus the fine folks at Ulysses who helped us smooth some rough edges :) Part of the fun of APIs is that I can't really predict all the fantastic ways people will use it. Algorithmically generated found poetry from Tweets? Illustrated by photos from 500px/Flickr? Automatic reporting of neighbourhood crime statistics? Like @ktzhu, I'm particularly excited though by the combination of the API and permissive licensing, with Medium as a vessel for important information and ideas that should be shared.
Ryan Hoover
@majelbstoat @ktzhu wow, nice! I didn't know you had an IFTTT channel already. I have some ideas on how we could create a rad Product Hunt publication with some of this new functionality. Brb! πŸ˜€
Ryan Hoover
Wow, this is potentially big. Twitter originally succeeded because of its open API which enabled hundreds (thousands perhaps) of apps to build its ecosystem. Medium has slowly opened up, first by giving non-invited people access to publish on the site, then enable anyone to use Medium on their on domain, and now this. I'm super curious to see how this grows. Here's the API documentation for those interested.
Andrew So
@rrhoover I was wondering what all the buzz was about with the new logo. Turns out, *this* is the game-changer. I'm not making any predictions but I'm excited to see bold moves by Medium.
Rodrigo Prior
@rrhoover It's all about growth and ecosystem view. I just hope it didn't finish like the situation that some developers faced with Twitter API (suddenly restrictions that killed lots of apps)
Shlok Vaidya
@rrhoover @rodrigoprior Yeah, I call that "platform creep" Definition: When a platform encourages novelty, but captures the new function instead of the generated value.
Eric Metelka
Jazzed for the one-click publishing from other software: Wordpress, Byword, IA Writer, and more. Publish to Medium no matter what app you prefer to write in.
Jp Valery
@eric3000 can't wait to have a plugin on WP to do that :D
Vijay
@eric3000 Do I sense a Sublime Text straight to Medium plugin in the works? Be still my heart!
Martin Bavio
I would also like to have a Reading API, if that's not a problem, @ev. πŸ˜€
Chris Messina
Top Hunter
@mbavio curious about what you'd like to do with it?
Martin Bavio
@chrismessina Well, imagine that you can recreate popular pieces and give them unique designs, I'm thinking of early concepts of Medium like this one: https://dribbble.com/shots/15261... I know, you could copy/paste the content manually, but I'm thinking it would be great to be able to do it directly with a Medium API (likes also maybe).
James Koole
Sadly, a one-sided API. Post to Medium, no way other than malformed, hidden RSS feeds to get stuff out.
Martin Bavio
@jameskoole Exactly what I was thinking about. If they are so worry about content and words, why not to let it fly away freely if they want? I would love to have a Reading API in order to play with different designs for brilliant pieces on Medium.
Jamie Talbot
@mbavio @jameskoole To @rodrigoprior's point about other APIs, we want to avoid giving you something and then taking it away. We intend to evolve the API very deliberately. A way of getting your posts programmatically is clearly going to be valuable. @jameskoole, can you describe the errors in the RSS feeds? We can definitely look at fixing those.
Rodrigo Prior
@majelbstoat @jameskoole It's great to see this mindset about Medium's API. I think it should work exactly this way... <3
Ravi Suhag
@rrhoover so very right. I always love the way Medium approaches one thing at a time.
Brian Douglas
I am noticing company blogs be embedded Medium blogs, this is a game changer and positions Medium to do what Wordpress did a few years back, taking over the internet one site at a time.
ben Watanabe
Very excited about this and can't wait to start integrating it. We were just starting to plan out how we might hack a version of this into our app, and very happy that we'll be able to keep things official!
Jamie Talbot
Hi all, we're very glad people are excited by this. I'm happy to answer your more technical questions about the API :)
jack rometty
@majelbstoat what kind of rate limiting will we see? thanks! πŸ˜„
Jamie Talbot
@rometty_ @majelbstoat Hey! There is rate-liming in place, but I won't go into specifics just yet. We're likely to dynamically adjust it once we see a pattern in the data, and we'll be watching closely for abuse.