Yahoo! Social APIs
zach graves
zachg@yahoo-inc.com
twitter: basictheory

Yahoo! Profiles - http://profiles.yahoo.com
me: http://profiles.yahoo.com/z.graves

Simply put, Social Directory is the central
location for Yahoo! user profile data, providing
identity, relationships and content data from
Yahoo profiles
http://developer.yahoo.com/social

What is a user?
• A user is identified by a GUID.
(no usernames are provided from Yahoo)
• A GUID is a unique, permanent, alphanumeric identifier
generated by Yahoo, and retrieved by your app.
• Eg: ‘JTN7YJFGW3J4IF53MDOD5RF7YU’

The API
• RESTful API
• Requires OAuth
• Endpoint:
http://social.yahooapis.com/v1/
• Resources for user profile, connections,
updates and presence.

International Support
• The character encoding in the APIs is UTF-8 for both
requests and responses.
• All requests support a ‘region’ and ‘lang’ parameter.
• The ‘lang’ param must conform to RFC 4646. (eg: ‘pt’)
• The ‘region’ param must be an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2
country code. (eg: ‘br’)
$args = array(“lang”=>”pt”, “region”=>“BR”);

User Profiles
• Contains various profile fields for full name, nickname,
location, status, age, profile image and other meta data
depending on the permissions given to the application.
• Read-only access
• 3 ‘views’
tinyusercard / usercard / extended profile (default)
http://social.yahooapis.com/v1/user/{guid}/profile

User Connections
• A list of mutual friends a user has.
• Read-only access
• Represented by an array of GUIDs
http://social.yahooapis.com/v1/user/{guid}/connections

User Status
• Provides information on the users status.
• Read/Write Access
• Contains start / end times, source, a unique ID and the
message text.
http://social.yahooapis.com/v1/user/{guid}/presence/presence

User Updates
• Contains a feed of shared activities and events
throughout Yahoo and 3rd party applications.
• Read-write access
• “Enrique wrote a restaurant review of ‘Vinheria
Percussi’ in Sao Paulo.”
• Contains a title, link, date, description and unique
update ID.
http://social.yahooapis.com/v1/user/{guid}/updates

Using with OAuth
require(‘OAuth.php’);
$guid = “JTN7YJFGW3J4IF53MDOD5RF7YU”;
// defina a URL e os argumentos de formato, linguagem e regiao
$url = “http://social.yahooapis.com/v1/user/$guid/profile”;
$args = array(“format”=>“json”, “lang”=>”pt”, “region”=>“BR”);
// Criar uma requisicao do nosso consumidor e token
$request = OAuthRequest::from_consumer_and_token($this->consumer, $this->token,
\"GET\", $url, $args);
// Criar a chamada
$request->sign_request($this->signatureMethod, $this->consumer, $this->token);
// Obtenha os cabecalhos
$headers = array($request->to_header());
$requestUrl = $url.http_build_query($args);
// Fazer requisicao
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $requestUrl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
return curl_exec($ch);

Using with OAuth
$guid = “JTN7YJFGW3J4IF53MDOD5RF7YU”;
// defina a URL e os argumentos de formato, linguagem e regiao
$url = “http://social.yahooapis.com/v1/user/$guid/profile”;
$args = array(“format”=>“json”, “lang”=>”pt”, “region”=>“BR”);
// Criar uma requisicao do nosso consumidor e token
$request = OAuthRequest::from_consumer_and_token($this->consumer, $this->token,
\"GET\", $url, $args);
// Criar a chamada
$request->sign_request($this->signatureMethod, $this->consumer, $this->token);
// Obtenha os cabecalhos
$headers = array($request->to_header());
$requestUrl = $url.http_build_query($args);
// Fazer requisicao
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $requestUrl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
return curl_exec($ch);

Using with OAuth
$guid = “JTN7YJFGW3J4IF53MDOD5RF7YU”;
// defina a URL e os argumentos de formato, linguagem e regiao
$url = “http://social.yahooapis.com/v1/user/$guid/profile”;
$args = array(“format”=>“json”, “lang”=>”pt”, “region”=>“BR”);
// Criar uma requisicao do nosso consumidor e token
$request = OAuthRequest::from_consumer_and_token($this->consumer, $this->token,
\"GET\", $url, $args);
// Criar a chamada
$request->sign_request($this->signatureMethod, $this->consumer, $this->token);
// Obtenha os cabecalhos
$headers = array($request->to_header());
$requestUrl = $url.http_build_query($args);
// Fazer requisicao
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $requestUrl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
return curl_exec($ch);

Using with OAuth
$guid = “JTN7YJFGW3J4IF53MDOD5RF7YU”;
// defina a URL e os argumentos de formato, linguagem e regiao
$url = “http://social.yahooapis.com/v1/user/$guid/profile”;
$args = array(“format”=>“json”, “lang”=>”pt”, “region”=>“BR”);
// Criar uma requisicao do nosso consumidor e token
$request = OAuthRequest::from_consumer_and_token($this->consumer, $this->token,
\"GET\", $url, $args);
// Criar a chamada
$request->sign_request($this->signatureMethod, $this->consumer, $this->token);
// Obtenha os cabecalhos
$headers = array($request->to_header());
$requestUrl = $url.http_build_query($args);
// Fazer requisicao
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $requestUrl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
return curl_exec($ch);

Using with OAuth
$guid = “JTN7YJFGW3J4IF53MDOD5RF7YU”;
// defina a URL e os argumentos de formato, linguagem e regiao
$url = “http://social.yahooapis.com/v1/user/$guid/profile”;
$args = array(“format”=>“json”, “lang”=>”pt”, “region”=>“BR”);
// Criar uma requisicao do nosso consumidor e token
$request = OAuthRequest::from_consumer_and_token($this->consumer, $this->token,
\"GET\", $url, $args);
// Criar a chamada
$request->sign_request($this->signatureMethod, $this->consumer, $this->token);
// Obtenha os cabecalhos
$headers = array($request->to_header());
$requestUrl = $url.http_build_query($args);
// Fazer requisicao
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $requestUrl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
return curl_exec($ch);

Authorization: OAuth
oauth_consumer_key=\"0685bd9184jfhq22...\",
oauth_token=\"ad180jjd733klru7\",
oauth_signature_method=\"HMAC-SHA1\",
oauth_signature=\"wOJIO9A2W5mFwDgiDvZbTSMK%2FPY%3D\",
oauth_timestamp=\"137131200\",
oauth_nonce=\"4572616e48616d6d65724c61686176\",
oauth_version=\"1.0\"
Alternatively, the OAuth params can be
passed as a query string with GET/POST
along with your own parameters.

REQUEST_URL + ?oauth_consumer_key=0685bd9184jfhq22...
&oauth_token=ad180jjd733klru7
&oauth_signature_method=HMAC-SHA1
&oauth_signature=wOJIO9A2W5mFwDgiDvZbTSMK%2FPY%3D
&oauth_timestamp=137131200
&oauth_nonce=4572616e48616d6d65724c61686176
&oauth_version=1.0

Using the SDKs
• We currently have two open SDKs for use with
the Social Platform
• PHP / ActionScript 3
• Currently working on code for other platforms...
Java, Ruby...
• Build your own if you need it. It is truly simple.
http://developer.yahoo.com/flash/yos
http://developer.yahoo.com/social/sdk

Skip OAuth, just use the SDK
require(‘lib/Yahoo.inc’);
// Make sure you obtain application keys before continuing by visiting:
// http://developer.yahoo.com/dashboard/
// Your consumer key goes here.
$consumerKey = \"dj0yJmk9UFhBZHZxUm....\";
// Your consumer key secret goes here.
$consumerKeySecret = \"7ce79407fa3a3...\";
// Your application ID goes here.
$applicationId = \"BG4yma4c\";
// Get a session first. If the viewer isn't sessioned yet, this call
// will redirect them to log in and authorize your application to
$session = YahooSession::requireSession($consumerKey, $consumerKeySecret, $applicationId);
// Get the currently sessioned user. That means the user who is
// currently viewing this page.
$user = $session->getSessionedUser();
// Load the profile for the current user.
$profile = $user->loadProfile();
return $profile;

Setting up an App
• YDN Dashboard:
http://developer.yahoo.com/dashboard/
• Create a new Open (YAP) or OAuth application
• Set up your app environment.
• Download and install PHP SDK.

Questions?