1.1 Introduction
Microblogging is the practice of posting small pieces of digital content which could be in the form of text, pictures, links, short videos, or any other form of media over the web (Java et al., 2007). Since its introduction in the early 2000’s, Microblogging has become very popular among groups of friends and professional colleagues who follow each other’s posts and frequently update their content. Similar to the other social networking websites they also aim at creating a sense of online community (Kolari et al., 2007). This type of blogging is assumed to be more informational and accurate for the marketers since they are very short and easily analyzable. Microblogging is offered by several services including Twitter, Jaiku and the latest being Pownce. These platforms allow a light-weight, easy form of communication that enables users to share information about their life, activities, opinions and status. One of the most popular microblogging platforms is Twitter (Pontin, 2007).
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Blog (a truncation of "weblog")(Blood, 2000) is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page.
Blogging refers [majorly] to writing, photography, and other forms of media that's self-published online. Blogging started as an opportunity for individuals to write diary-style entries, but it has since been incorporated into websites for many businesses (Randy, 2021). The hallmarks of blogging include frequent updates, informal language, and opportunities for readers to engage and start a conversation.
In the past, long-form blog posts have been the holy grail for a long time. In fact, many studies have proven that, among other factors, the length of a post is responsible for its popularity. The general consensus seems to be that long, more comprehensive posts deliver more value and get more social shares than their shorter counterparts. A word count of 2250-2500 is the sweet spot that gets maximum organic traffic and posts with 3000-10000 words get the highest number of shares. But this perception is changing. Click-happy net users with dwindling attention spans have no patience to go through long-form content. A Contently survey indicates that 75% of people actually prefer reading posts under 1000 words; only 5% invest time into reading 2000-word plus posts (Werner et al. 2012).
Microblogs are concise blog posts (under 300 words) that can have images, GIFs, links, infographics, videos, and audio clips. Although the term “microblogging” is relatively new, the practice isn’t. Many of us are already microblogging without being aware of it. Let me explain with an illustration. You create a video tutorial or write a research-driven whitepaper. While posting it, you draft a crisp summary that includes the main highlights and an embedded link to the resource. That’s a microblog! It’s like instant messaging and traditional blogging rolled into one. The most common content types shared via microblogs are news updates, memes, quotes, event highlights, user-generated content, and infographics. Since 78% of marketers vouch for visual content’s efficacy in driving engagement, most microblogs contain images or animated graphics.
Microblogging tools facilitate easily sharing status messages either publicly or within a social network (Java, 2007). Microblogging when compared to regular blogging satisfies a need for an even faster and prompt mode of communication. By restricting the users to post limited character posts, it shortens the users’ time requirements and thought investment for content generation enabling them to post prompt messages (Lavallee, 2007). It also tempts the users to frequently update and follow other microbloggers posts unlike a prolific and creative blogger who may update his blog once every few days (Lavallee, 2007). The amount of data generated in these microblogging websites is therefore huge and makes them a potential target of the companies to reform their marketing techniques and strategies by generating leads and understanding the latest trends followed by the microbloggers.
In this work, a microblogging service API (Application Programming Interfaces) that is fully secured is introduced, where a user can perform essential CRUD (Create Read Update Delete) activities on a microblog post and save the progress or changes to the cloud and not on the user’s local machine. This service API can be integrated with any existing or custom-built front-end application to deliver an overall enterprise level software as a service.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Investigation revealed the problems of the existing system which entails that:
- Software Developers usually get caught up easily while trying to add a microblogging feature to an existing or a new platform, this may lead to over engineering;
- Lack of tailored API to use in development might lead to bikeshedding on what the microblogging feature should have or not have;
- Building a custom microblogging system might be an extra cost to a company or startup;
- New APIs development tends to become a painstakingly hard task to the developer when the need to maintain the system arises in addition to other daily tasks.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to design and implement a secured microblogging service API that is easy to integrate with any front-end application. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:
- Develop a microblogging service API.
- Authenticate and save the details of a user.
- Encrypt a registered user’s password.
- Allow unauthenticated users to view blogs ONLY.
- Allow authenticated users to create, read, update or delete a blog post.
1.5 Significance of Study
The significance of this project is to provide a reliable way of integrating a microblogging service to existing or new software platforms. This project will aid the developer/company to rely on this system to handle virtually all facets of their microblogging feature.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on the Design and Implementation of a Secured Microblogging Service API.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
Database: A collection of logically related data to meet the information need of organization.
Application Program: A computer program that interacts with the database.
Hardware: Computer equipment used to perform input processing and system output activates.
Software: These are program for computer which allows certain specific task to be accomplished e.g. word process etc
