Creating this dashboard, without direct access to the Internet, was no simple task for our team. Before they could even start with the dashboard, the team had to first create copies of each real-world API for themselves to use in their offline development environment. Four engineers, working together, built perfect imitations of the APIs offered by Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. Starting with OAuth verification and continuing to support a wide variety of query parameters, these mock APIs were no small feat.
Once the foundation was in place, the team moved forward with building the dashboard itself. A quick and efficient ExpressJS backend gathers data from each API and serves it up to a ReactJS front-end. A scheduled cron-job runs in the background, saving new data on a daily basis. This historical data is stored so that the app can analyze trends over time.
Needless to say, the team at AirBnB was grateful and impressed. For the TLMWorks engineering team, it was a sophisticated accomplishment that pushed them to overcome whatever obstacles they faced.
Now complete, we can use our DIY social media APIs for future projects that involve integrations with client social media services. This project was a blast.
Eric Toda, Global Head of Social Marketing and Content, thanked us afterwards;
“Wow, love this. It’s even better on mobile. Incredibly useful, and I’m wishing we had it for everything now (tv, etc). Well done TLM Works team!”