Random Etc. - MySpace needs an API

MySpace needs an API

In Imported, Uncategorized, Weblog on 20 February 2006 tagged Ideas, Imported, Myspace, Weblog with 7 comments

Despite its wilful disregard of many best practice web design patterns I hold dear, and its obvious attraction to big business in order to sell things to "the kids", I'm still a big fan of MySpace for keeping track of new music. I go there mainly because lots of the bands I like are there every day, talking to their fans, keeping up to date gig listings (which they almost all fail to do on their own sites), posting new songs (often months before release), and so on. The good outweighs the bad, even if it's very bad.

For those who haven't tried it, when you find a band you like on MySpace you can "add" them as a friend (much as you add contacts on any social networking site). You then get bulletins and blogs and event notifications from those bands. But here's the thing: MySpace doesn’t notify you if your favourite bands post new tracks. That's the main reason I'm there!

MySpace should generate a podcast/RSS feed for me which points to the most recent downloadable mp3s from bands I have added as friends. Maybe that's a really obscure feature request? But if MySpace had an API, it would be a trivial 10 minute script, and then I could take the most up to date MySpace music with me wherever I went.

Without an API, it's an uphill struggle from the beginning. All the data is there, but it's locked up - I can't export a list of my friends, the track URLs are locked up in a Flash player, the HTML is so bad it almost seems deliberate. There are streaming-only tracks as well as tracks which are legal downloads – for bonus points a podcast script would also grab the streams, but I imagine that would involve hacking around with the Flash player they use and watching what goes over the wire to pick out the URLs. And a big fat News Corp lawsuit...

Update: since this page is getting lots of hits, some readers may be interested in this Myspace Parser which gives a Python interface to Myspace.

7 Comments

I absolutely agree. There are ways to scrap friends and data off profile pages but, it isn’t easy.

Posted by Geesman on 26 February 2006 @ 10pm

i also agree. i’d like to be able to leverage the social network, but have to look at these most terrible globs of html.

Posted by abstraktmethodz on 9 March 2006 @ 9pm

I think it would be good to do things like extract the social network but it would be good if the system to stop physists down loading the network and writing dull papers about it.

Posted by sheep on 18 April 2006 @ 4pm

I’d like an API so I could write some cool scripts too. Unfortunately, MySpace seems to be enumerating, storing and cashing-in on the population’s social connections just fine. Maybe the service that provides the music players provides rss links?

Posted by Anonymous on 23 April 2006 @ 11am

If myspace developed an API I think I would definately be one of the first in line to feed off of it. Although, it appears that myspace wants to keep all of their data and services proprietary. Personally I believe they would make a lot more money with an open architecture. Considering how many people are glued to MySpace such as myself because of the capability that it gives to friends.

I can leave people comments back and such, which is impossible if I just have a website for my music project. I could probably develop forms for contact or a simple email link but I would probably only be able to respond via email. I think a vast majority of MySpace users are on it because they wany attention. They want their other friends to know that they’re being contacted and that they’re a socialable person.

The number of people who know the value of a myspace API is probably low, considering that the majority of serious developers are 30+ and aren’t part of the myspace crowd or even care understand it.

Posted by Bonz Xylophone on 10 July 2006 @ 6pm

If myspace develops an API I’d guess it would be a write-only API.

They are the #1 most-visted site on the internet in part because you have to actually go to myspace to view any of the content their. They probably want to keep it that way.

Posted by Tom Alison on 1 August 2006 @ 6pm

What do you know, your blog is the top hit on Google for ‘myspace api’…

I agree it would be excellent to have - I was actually searching for “myspace api” because today Facebook published an API.

I would not have believed how many people are interested in it. In the last 16 hours ~700 students have signed up for Developer Accounts and there’s already applications using it (the one I saw that was pretty neat is a Google Map/Facebook mix that maps all of your friend’s hometowns). Pretend only 10% of the people signed up have an idea - that’s still potentially 70+ applications which rely on Facebook.

Sorry to go off topic, but imagine if Myspace does open an API… They have how many million users? I think it would be incredibly healthy for Myspace.

Posted by Dan Jackson on 16 August 2006 @ 4am

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