Bateflix[1] is noticeably absent from the list of partnered apps.
[1]: http://bateflix.com/
Retiring the Netflix Public API
31–40 of 79 posts
Re: Retiring the Netflix Public API
#32I too am very disappointed and agree with the other commenter who said they are big enough that they don't have to worry about closing it. When I realized I wanted an API key they had already stopped handing them out, and now the axe falls again. I don't argue it's not within their right, it's just sad. I have upwards of 1200 graded movies in another service that I used for a long time and that has a public API. Nowa…
I agree it is stupid that data you enter into a service, which you cannot know if it will remain (and that means every service), you can't extract to do with it what you want (log it yourself). It just gives me a better feeling if I can extract my netflix watching habbits and ratings for my own usage instead of relying on their ways (but their way isn't bad).
Also I just recently tried Mopidy again, a year ago it would crash a lot and time outs and stuff, but now I have it running as my main MPD with MPDroid on my phone and also Mopidy-Spotify. It is really awesome! I can just use my own keyboard shortcuts again to prev/play/pause/next again which I always found a burden in the spotify client. I'm with you on that Spotify C library, it would suck so much if they would EOL it without replacement.
Re: Retiring the Netflix Public API
#33This is why I will never create a business based on an API of a third-party. They can take it away at any time..and your business is done.
Even if that company's business is providing the API?
Re: Retiring the Netflix Public API
#34My comment from an earlier post: I was disappointed to get that email, I have an API key and am using it for an ongoing (small) side project of mine. It seems counter to everything else Netflix engineering promotes with its tech blog and open source contributions. To be so public and open on one hand, and then shut down the public API on the other seems strange. Trying to cut down on third-party access to user accoun…
Same here, have a working side project that has been working like a clock watch for the past 3 years, with a few thousands regular users.
I will now need to see if scraping is a solution that can work.
At the same time, when they announce last year they were stopping the new API keys, I was wondering how long it will take for them to terminate the existing ones.
Re: Retiring the Netflix Public API
#35I am glad my site moved away [1] from their API to TMDB. Just in time. [1] http://fllix.com
FWIW, the link to TMDB on the bottom of your site is broken.
Re: Retiring the Netflix Public API
#36When business schools a few dozen years hence discuss this period of API development, they'll talk of how we learned to use an open API as a weapon wielded by a mid-size company to fend off competitors until the company has grown to a place of market dominance.
Re: Retiring the Netflix Public API
#37Re: Retiring the Netflix Public API
#38I don't know what is the big deal. It's as if these startups were in a Bachelor/Bachelorette style of competition and everybody but a few lost. It's not like the terms and conditions said the API would be there forever or for everybody.
Re: Retiring the Netflix Public API
#39This just means more people will rely on covertly scraping their data. It also means, much like Twitter and the way they nerfed their developer ecosystem, Netflix will gain much more control over any available 3rd party offerings (as they've clearly outlined). Seems like a very short-sighted trade off if you ask me, but, hey, maybe the public API was just underused and they didn't want to devote more resources to mai…
Netflix was my first introduction to webscraping back around 2004 (with Perl and WWW::Mechanize) because they didn't see the need for an API. They've never done anything more than pay lip service to it since they finally caved in and made one. Guess it's back to doing that, or using an alternative like TheMovieDB [1], which has a nice API. [1] http://www.themoviedb.org/
You might be interested in a tool I wrote called goim[1], which is a command + library (written in Go) that loads all of IMDb into either a PostgreSQL or SQLite database. (It takes about 12 minutes for the download and loading of the database from scratch on my personal machine.) It supports complex queries (with fuzzy matching) really easily on the command line. For example, this will find the top 5 ranked Simpsons episodes with "homer" in the title:
goim search '%homer%' {show:simpsons} {sort:rank desc} {limit:5} {votes:100-}
goim rename -tv 'the simpsons' *.mkv
Of course, the database has more than Simpsons episodes in it (and renaming works with movies too), but it's my go-to example. :-)
Want to try it out? It's easy. Make sure you have Go installed, then install and load and search:
go get github.com/BurntSushi/goim # ~ 30 seconds (compiles SQLite)
goim load -db goim.sqlite # ~ 1 minute, only movies/tv shows
goim search -db goim.sqlite '%homer%' {show:the simpsons}
Re: Retiring the Netflix Public API
#40> To better focus our efforts and to align them with the needs of our global member base, we will be retiring the public API program What a sad statement, there is no need for this corporate-drone talk. "We're shutting it down because it doesn't make us money, and we think we will be better off being a closed platform" would have ringed much better, not necessarily in these words. Honesty is always appreciated.
But it does make them money, just indirectly (users using the apps to enjoy the service more). Look at those apps they listed, none would exist without the api, meaning their users wouldn't be using them, and many continue their subscription to netflix because they exist.
How many users would that total to? How much money?
Additionally, it's cheap marketing and cheap growth. Both good things for a subscription model company.
Taking the api offline is short term thinking and might hint it's time to sell.