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Comparing APIs from Facebook and PeopleAggregator

Aug 23, 2006
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This is a rare guest blog post - done by Richard MacManus of Read/Write fame.

Comparison of Facebook and PeopleAggregator APIs

Now that Facebook has launched an API, it’s time to compare the offerings of Facebook to our own PeopleAggregator APIs (which are documented here).

After going through each method in the Facebook API and comparing it with the equivalents in PeopleAggregator, our impression is that the Facebook API is still quite shallow. It gives you some full read access - to events, friend-links and photos. But that’s as far as it goes and many things don’t have full read access. For things like messages and comments, you can only fetch counts - not the actual content. Facebook does have some good query modes (get friends of a certain type, query if pairs of people are friends, get tagged photos, access comment counts on photos). But the Facebook API is basically read only - you can’t post, change friend relationships, etc.

On the other hand, the PeopleAggregator API gives you complete read-write access to most things - e.g. friend links, blog content, private messages, board messages, and albums. However this is not to suggest that we’re finished, by any means. We don’t yet provide access to user profiles, comments, or structured blogging content. Also you can only get info about your own friends currently, via the API.

In reality neither API is finished. Facebook is missing write access and full read access to many things. PeopleAggregator is missing profile and comment access, but supports the metaWeblog API and overall it lets you access more things. We also have RSS feeds.

Here’s a more detailed look at the differences between Facebook’s API and PeopleAggregator’s API:

Friends / relationships

Facebook has some interesting query functions, but is read only. PeopleAggregator’s querying is limited to getting the list of relations for a user, but also lets you add, delete and modify relations.

Facebook’s friends.get, which gets a list of friend IDs, is equivalent to PeopleAggregator’s getUserRelations method. PeopleAggregator’s getUserRelations returns a little bit more data than Facebook’s friends.get.

Facebook has friends.getTyped, which gets a list of friends filtered by type (types can be ‘lived’, ‘worked’, ‘dated’, ‘family’, ‘dontknow’, etc.). PeopleAggregator has no equivalent.

Facebook has friends.areFriends, which lets you check a bunch of pairs of people - to see if any are friends with each other (e.g. you can ask “is Richard friends with Marc? Is Marc friends with Phil? Is Phil friends with Martin?” — all in one call). PeopleAggregator doesn’t have an equivalent of this - you can only get your own list of friends and can’t query it like this.

PeopleAggregator also has newUserRelation, deleteUserRelation, and editUserRelation - which let you add, delete and edit relationships. Facebook has no equivalent.

Winner: PeopleAggregator

Messages

Facebook lets you count messages. PeopleAggregator lets you fully access mail folders and send messages.

Facebook’s messages.getCount gets the number of unread messages and the total number of messages for a user. It doesn’t look like you can get the actual messages.

PeopleAggregator goes far further; you can get a list of mail folders, read messages in a folder, and send messages.

Winner: PeopleAggregator

Authentication

Facebook has a Flickr-like web-based login system. PeopleAggregator doesn’t do this inside the API, but it acts as a Sxip homesite - so you can log in that way. Currently you need to know a user’s login name and password to access our API.

Winner: Facebook

User profiles

Facebook has a super-detailed profile fetch function, but nothing to let you change the profile. On the other hand, PeopleAggregator’s profile fetch function is just a placeholder at the moment.

Winner: Facebook

Events

Facebook lets you query events over a range, but not post or edit events. PeopleAggregator has no event functions in the API.

Facebook’s events.getInWindow gets a list of calendar events over a time range. PeopleAggregator doesn’t have an equivalent, as we don’t index events yet.

Winner: Facebook

Photos

Facebook gives you read-only access to albums. It also lets you count comments and search for tagged photos. PeopleAggregator gives you read-write access to albums.

Facebook lets you get a list of albums, count the number of photo comments a user has, get photos from an album, and get photos tagged with a user. You can’t upload or edit photos or get the actual comments.

PeopleAggregator lets you get a list of albums (which can also contain video and audio), get media files from an album, upload media files into an album and delete media files from an album. We don’t have equivalents to the comment or tag query functions.

Winner: PeopleAggregator

Facebook features with no PeopleAggregator equivalent

Facebook has a couple of features with no PeopleAggregator equivalent:

‘the wall’ - which lets people comment on your profile or leave you public messages
‘pokes’ - a means of getting a user’s attention; e.g. for flirting

Facebook also lets you get a count of ‘wall posts’ for a user and count the number of ‘pokes’ received by a user.

PeopleAggregator API features with no Facebook API equivalent

The PeopleAggregator API lets you do quite a few other things:

read the entire user list from a site
search and retrieve groups
create and delete groups
join and leave groups
read and post board messages
read and post content (from/to your blog, or a group blog)
post, edit (coming soon) and delete content using the metaWeblog API.

Summary

The announcement of Facebook’s API was great news for the social networking world, but we think it doesn’t go far enough. The Facebook API is basically read-only and then only has full read access to some things.

By comparison, PeopleAggregator API gives you complete read-write access to most things. While there is still work to be done on it, our API ultimately gives you more functionality and control than Facebook’s API.

EDITOR’s NOTE: Since the commission of this post, it has become clear that Facebook DOES intend on creating a path back for their APIs and they’re not done yet.

But I kind of thought this article brought up a bunch of interesting points and it certainly elucidates details that folks need to know. So right on to Facebook - keep going!

I’m also sorry this post takes on a kind of competative edge. We all need to work together to change the world.