dial2do api

Sean O Sullivan, CTO sos@dial2do.com

API Experience

one number to get things done, hands-free

Dial One Number to …

“sandy”

“Evernote”

“Mosio”

“RTM”

“text”

jaiku

“jajah”“twitter”

“NYT”

“Huff Post”

“tumblr”

“Blogger”

Currently 40+ services

Interactive, Two-Way service (not just voice to text)

Integrates with existing web applications

One number, many services

Technical Overview

APIs

Lots of API usage in our projects

Mobile and Telephony (SMS, on-device APIs, Ribbit …)Classic Web APIs (Google, Facebook, twitter, ping.fm, Jajah…)Other telecom APIs (Parlay, Parlay-X)Also provide our own Dial2Do APIs (not public yet)

Good news

Good Examples

Broadly speaking, many APIs

Facebook APILast.fmGoogle

Are well-documentedAre well-structuredHave associated documentation and code samples

IssuesSecurity

Each service tends to have a different approach toauthenticationOpenID, OAuth, Token-based (by user or by service), orworst case username/passwordOften multiple forms of security supported (Google, Yahoo)

Architecture and Design

Dependencies on third parties - outages outside your controlIs twitter down for everyone or just me? :-)Defensive design and coding (async, failure cases)

OtherSome services not well documented (Bebo)

Authentication

Token based, perservice Usernames and Passwords don’t need to be stored

User control to revoke individual servicesYour service looks/feels better

Oauth or OpenID based

Standard with some widespread adoptionGoogle, Yahoo, others…Good documentation, good tools

Token based, peruser

Usernames and Passwords don’t need to be storedToken is at user account levelRevoke the token, revoke all services

Username /Password Least desirable - YOU have to store username/password

Bet

ter

Authorisation

OpenID

Has not as yet seen wide adoption - but will most likely getthere (URLs, more complex to grasp for end user)More features than OAuth

Cool Off Period

Have to protect against brute force auth attacksNeed cool-off periods after multiple auth failse.g. dictionary attack on twitter

OAuthWe are a Consumer but not yet a provider

one number to get things done, hands-free

Sean O Sullivan, CTO sos@dial2do.com