App.net is a developer-friendly social infrastructure platform. Our API is the primary interface by which developers interact with the platform. The documentation is broken into two parts: these guides and our full API reference.
The App.net API is powerful and flexible – if you’re new to the API, we suggest you start with these guides.
Use App.net’s identity layer to authenticate users and populate user profiles. For more information, see the Authentication reference and User reference.
App.net has a asymmetrical (follower-following) social graph which can be used to solve the “cold start” problem when a user signs into your app. The Following reference has more details.
Channels are like chat rooms. They’re a time ordered series of messages that can be public, private, or restricted to a group of App.net users. The messages inside of channels can take advantage of App.net files, places, and anything else the API provides. Chat rooms, Broadcasts, and private messages are all built on top of App.net Messaging.
App.net has a location database that can be integrated with your app. This allows you to add location to Posts or Message to enable location aware apps. See the Places reference for more information.
Annotations are machine readable metadata that can be attached to most App.net objects (posts, messages, users, and more). They power checkins, photos and other rich posts on App.net. See the Annotations introduction to get started.
App.net gives each user space to store and share files. These files can be shared publicly, attached to posts, or sent as a private message to a friend. All App.net apps share the same file storage space so if a new photo or video app comes along, you can check it out and not have to worry about migrating all your old data. See the Files reference for more information.
To see the latest updates to the API, follow @adnapi. You may also want to subscribe to the App.net blog for general news and the App.net API Updates Broadcast channel for developer related news.
There are numerous ways for developers to get help utilizing the platform and to provide feedback.