@Twitter Integrates with @BlueVia APIs - my brief thoughts #yam
So yesterday felt like a coming of age moment.
As some of you will know, my day job is running marketing for BlueVia, the developer program from Telefonica. Its a job filled with immense highs and some lows. Convincing developers that a Telco is a credible partner is not an easy job, but then who wants an easy job!
BlueVia launched some 9 months ago, and came out of closed beta in April. In that short timeframe we have released two drops of software, signed up a good chunk of developers, and are now starting to see some really interesting products coming through using the BlueVia API's. #himum being one of my personal favourites.
The coming of age moment yesterday was the announcement that Twitter has integrated into BlueVia's MMS API to allow O2 customers in the UK to send picture messages to their Twitter timeline. Its was the culmination of a great team effort from the folks at Twitter, Telefonica, BlueVia and O2 UK. I hope this announcement signals a tipping point for the platform, and send a positive message to developers that if BlueVia is good enough for Twitter, then maybe we are worth checking out.
Now of course Twitter simultaneously announced the same service with other carriers around the world, including Orange in the UK, so "what's the big deal?" you may ask. Well the reason we, and some others, are excited is the "how" they have done it.
Because BlueVia has exposed RESTful API's to a number of core Telefonica capabilities, the resources expended to integrate Twitter into our infrastructure were substantially less than a standard direct integration, with of course the associated speed to market benefits. In addition, BlueVia exposes a common MMS API interface for multiple Telefonica operating businesses, meaning replication of an integration is seamless, compared to the traditional approach of multiple local integration projects.
Below is a selection of articles on the announcement:
James Parton
