Technology Scouting Project: Open API webservices for MediaMosa

This exploratory technology study explores the possibilities of (1) providing content from MediaMosa publicly by making use of web services and (2) consuming data from other sources and integrating these into MediaMosa content.
MediaMosa facilitates end user services (such as SURFmedia) by providing access to and use of videos and provides storage, transcoding and streaming services.
First of all, this exploratory technology study will provide an explanation of the term ‘open’ within the context of open web services. On the one hand, ‘open’ is used in combination with content: open content. This is content that can be commonly accessed and can be used for various purposes. On the other hand, ‘open’ is used in combination with web services: open web services or open API. This is a technology to unlock content from MediaMosa using a public API (Application Programming Interface), based on open standards, and enabling anyone to make use of open content in MediaMosa.

This exploratory study introduces the concept of an open API, which is positioned on top of the existing MediaMosa web service layer. An open API uses web services as well as providing a web service interface. Therefore, recognised end user applications can continue to link with the web services and use the open API. Unrecognised applications/mashups can only make use of an open API. 
Introducing the open API will create two new target groups that can make use of MediaMosa. Using such tools as an RSS reader, the open API first of all provides end users with direct access to their favourite videos. Secondly, developers can use the open API to create mashups based on MediaMosa videos and, in this way, develop new applications.
Answers to questions arising from the study are formulated in two parts.

1. Providing content: The formats best suited to the open API for providing videos are the standards: RSS, Atom and JSON. Providing these three standards allows us to cater to the most diverse target group possible. You will find more extensive information on the Atom standard further on in the text. This provides insight into the call that the open API must be able to process and the XML that needs to be sent in the response. A comparison will also be made to the APIs provided by YouTube and Twitter.
   
   
2. Consuming data: This exploratory study opted to consume data by combining these with other open web services, as this can be done without having to make internal adjustments to MediaMosa and without the need for storage in MediaMosa. The technology required to do this involves creating a mashup. Mashups are applications that combine data from different sources and present them collectively. Mashups prefer to operate with APIs so that data can be extracted from sources uniformly and can then be combined. The mashup will work on the open API proposed earlier on in this document. The study looks at the data selection used in the mashup and how this is presented. The following questions are answered: What data can be linked to MediaMosa content? How is the mashup used by the user? Again, a comparison is made with other providers.

The report further discusses the use of oAuth combined with a federation, as is the case with the SURFnet federation. It should be possible to present shielded videos from MediaMosa in mashups and even to update video data. If so, the federation must be able to support oAuth.
A Proof of Concept (PoC) of the open API is made on http://api.mediamosa.surfnet.nl/.

Also, a sample mashup using the open API is presented in the PoC. This PoC is described in the report.

The most important conclusions and recommendations are: To create open content, the owner has to mark the content as ‘open’. It is necessary to implement oAuth in order to grant access to shielded material. Using an open API can bring tremendous added value to MediaMosa. However, thought must be given to how it can best be to put to use. It is essential that the method chosen corresponds to what others are doing in the field of open APIs.