Chapter 11
Getting Updated with Facebook's Real-Time API
In This Chapter
- Accessing data in real time
- Exploring PubsubHubbub and RSS Cloud
- Staying updated with real-time objects
Facebook is a living, breathing network. Just as soon as you retrieve information about a user, that information may very well have changed within a minute after retrieval. For this reason, Facebook has provided an application programming interface (API) to notify you when the data you have collected about a user changes. Facebook encourages developers who store data about users to use this API to always keep that information as up to date as possible.
Nowadays, just about everywhere you go, you can consume data in real time, or as it occurs. Just set up a search for earthquake in your favorite Twitter client to understand what I mean. Sites such as Twitter allow you to post and consume data, giving you a glimpse into the world without actually having to be there. At the time of this writing, sites that allow you to see data as it happens include (but are far from limited to) the following:
- Google Reader
- Google Search
- Microsoft Bing
- Quora
You may have watched as riots in Iran happened, and you could read it directly from the people who were experiencing it as it happened. You may have seen posts from friends during a recent earthquake. I have seen posts from people in plane crashes, just minutes after the crash, and others rushing to help just minutes later.
Where I live, an entire ...
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