When we rolled out our large iPhone update last month there was an interesting new tab, Conversations. That Notifo feature lets people message other Notifo users with the same lightning quick push technology found throughout Notifo -- entirely for free. Today, we're announcing an update to our API so you can start taking advantage of that. The new messages API page explains how to send a message to any user with your service account.
Here's where it really gets interesting...
User Messaging + Webhooks = BOTS!
Our apologies for the added emphasis, but we think this is going to make a lot of developers jump for joy. Here's how it works:
Specify a webhook URL in your service preferences. Whenever a user sends a message (through the iPhone app's Conversations tab) to your Service Username, the webhook will be accessed by Notifo via HTTP POST along with the entire contents of the message data. You may use the POST contents to create a response to the user.
What can bots do?
Bots accept commands from the user and can fetch data for them, run a process, fire off another script.. pretty much anything. A bot should display a list of acceptable commands when a user types "help" or an unrecognized command. Think of it as an instant, mobile command line. Please take a look at our Bots documentation page for more information on how to start coding your first Notifo bot.
Thoughts? What kinds of uses can you come up with? Please share any of your bot creations with us, we'd love to see what you've been working on!
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