Programming Social Applications

How Does OExchange Work?

There are a few steps we must complete to get the entire OExchange process in place. There are two main actors that we will be working with here:

Service provider

This is the site or service that allows users to share content (e.g., Twitter’s “Tweet this” button for sharing a story on its site).

Publisher

This is the site or service that implements a way for its users to share content from it to a service provider (e.g., the site that integrates the “Tweet this” button).

Here are the steps (illustrated in Figure 10-5), from a high level, that each actor will need to take to implement an end-to-end OExchange solution:

1. The service provider (target) integrates discovery and publishing tools.

   The service provider opens up an endpoint on its system to allow content to be posted through the OExchange process. It also integrates a discovery file containing all the information that a publisher needs to implement the provider’s service and add discovery mechanisms on its site.

2. The publisher (source) performs discovery on the service provider.

   The publisher uses a variety of discovery methods to obtain the discovery file from the service provider. This enables the publisher to implement the service provider’s sharing mechanism.

3. The publisher sends a content offer to the service provider.

   Once a user chooses to share some content through the service provider, the publisher will forward the user’s browser session to the offer endpoint on the server provider site.

Figure 10-5. How ...