Threads' API Is Coming in June

In 2005 Gabe Rivera was a compiler software engineer at Intel — before starting the tech-news aggregator Techmeme. And last year his Threads profile added the words "This is a little self-serving, but I want all social networks to be as open as possible."

Friday Threads engineer Jesse Chen posted that it was Rivera's post when Threads launched asking for an API that "convinced us to go for it." And Techmeme just made its first post using the API, according to Chen. The Verge reports : Threads plans to release its API by the end of June after testing it with a limited set of partners, including Hootsuite, Sprinklr, Sprout Social, Social News Desk, and Techmeme. The API will let developers build third-party apps for Threads and allow sites to publish directly to the platform.
More from TechCrunch: Engineer Jesse Chen posted that the company has been building the API for the past few months. The API currently allows users to authenticate, publish threads and fetch the content they post through these tools. "Over the past few months, we've been building the Threads API to enable creators, developers, and brands to manage their Threads presence at scale and easily share fresh, new ideas with their communities from their favorite third-party applications," he said...

The engineer added that Threads is looking to add more capabilities to APIs for moderation and insights gathering.

Always hopeful

[topopardo]

With these announcements I always wonder to which degree there's a real willingness to open these networks. I'm a fan of the fediverse and the decentralized internet, but these last years have proven that it's a hard problem to solve once there's enough critical mass. Are we really going for a re-decentralization of the internet?

Re:

[znrt]

short answer: no.

long answer: no, this is a nerd thing, it will never catch on with the greater herd.

that said, if you do want to spend brain time on social/tech related stuff, this is as good a case as any other, please do.

Re:

[Chelloveck]

0xjessel, who posted the announcement, also posted "there are no plans to support APIs for 3p clients. but posts from federated threads users can be seen on other mastodon apps if you follow them".

So, no. Just a way to facilitate bulk posters to post in even more bulk. You, the lowly end user, need to stick to the approved interface that earns them ad revenue.

Re: Always hopeful

[Oyjord]

What ads?

Re:

[Chelloveck]

I don't actually use it, but it's made by Facebook. I'm just assuming there are ads. If not now, then as soon as it gets any traction in the market.

Re:

[znrt]

that said (bis): for any schemes to succeed on scale, economic incentive to tech companies / investors is a must. if you have a way to convince them that federation can be profitable, you are worth millions of $$$. the catch is that federation and transparency just by design limit the possibilities to extract of economic value from any exchange, so that's a very hard sell right now. i have no idea how, but you'll have to offer something else, my (maybe naive) intuition is something quite long term.

if it wer

Please stop

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Facebook/Zuckerberg. It's a trap. Just say no.

I swear Zuck's just trolling Musk at this point

[93 Escort Wagon]

Over the past few months, Threads seems to be specifically adding in the features that Musk has removed from Twitter / Q / whatevertheheckhecallsitnow.

Re:

[iMadeGhostzilla]

And yet in the past few months I've not ONCE read in the news about a post on Threads, and I've read countless reports about someone having posted this or that on "X (formerly Twitter)".

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

That's not surprising, since (at least right now) Threads is discouraging its use for news / politics.

Of course API these days...

[Viol8]

.... just means some particular HTTP GET and POST formatting to Gen Z whereas to us greybeards it means an actual suite of functions and/or objects depending on your language of choice meaning you can get coding straight away rather than having to wrap the http in curl or whatever calls.

Re:

[coopertempleclause]

How old are you?

Most public APIs have been REST for decades. Otherwise the client and application have to be using compatible languages. REST is universal.

Re:

[Viol8]

Define "public" APIs? I work with a lot of different DBs - none of them use REST as the default API method.

Fediverse/ActivityPub

[aharth]

What API are they talking about? I thought Threads was already part of the Fediverse and as such supports ActivityPub [w3.org], which specifies an API?