Author Archives: Craig Gilchrist

About Craig Gilchrist

Craig was a Senior Technical Writer on the Platform team at Bazaarvoice.

Mashery-powered Bazaarvoice Developer portal is LIVE!

Welcome to the Mashery-powered Bazaarvoice Developer portal. We strive to give you the tools you need to develop cutting-edge applications on the Bazaarvoice platform.

Some changes you’ll notice:

  • You no longer have to login to see documentation. Just click the Expand icon (expand) to drill down to the information you need.
  • If you want to request an API key or need to contact us with a support question, you will need to create and use a Mashery ID (or use your existing one if you access other Mashery-powered APIs). Your current Bazaarvoice developer portal ID will no longer work.

Note that none of your existing API keys are affected by this transition. They will continue to work without interruption.

Thanks for your support of the Bazaarvoice platform.

Bazaarvoice developer portal moving to Mashery effective 3/1/13

We are pleased to announce that on March 1, 2013, we are moving our developer portal hosting to Mashery.

What does this mean to you, our developer community:

  • None of your existing API keys will be affected by this transition. They will continue to work without interruption.
  • You no longer need to log in to see API documentation or any public content on the site.
  • To request a new API key, you will need to register with a Mashery ID (or use your existing one if you access other Mashery-powered APIs). Your current Bazaarvoice developer portal ID will no longer work after March 1st.
  • There is no change to the developer portal URL (http://developer.bazaarvoice.com).

We know that the increased security and faster key generation will enhance your development experience. As always, thank you for developing on the Bazaarvoice platform. We look forward to seeing your applications.

Platform API release notes, version 5.4

We are pleased to announce that the following functionality has been developed for version 5.4:

  • Submission forms pre-filled for non-anonymous users
  • Full text search on all UGC and on includes
  • Product family queries
  • Photo upload accepts URLs
  • Brightcove Smart Player Javascript integration
  • Story rating field exposed in the response
  • Special product attributes exposed in the response
  • New filtering capabilities

More detailed information on each of these items is listed below. For complete documentation, refer to the Platform API documentation, version 5.4.

Submission forms pre-filled for non-anonymous users

When submitting content, the values of all known submission fields are now returned in the submission response fields. This only affects submissions where the user is not anonymous and the user/userid parameter is provided with the GET request.

Full text search on all UGC and on includes

The following content types were added to the existing search capabilities:

  • reviews
  • answers
  • comments (story and review)
  • stories

All content is now searchable. For a list of all the fields that are searched for any given content type, see the API Basics page.

Product family queries

When filtering by product id, all content from that product’s product family is also returned by default. There is a new excludeFamily parameter that you can set to not return product family content. For examples and full documentation, see the Product Display method page.

Photo upload accepts URLs

The uploadphoto endpoint now accepts HTTP URLs of images in addition to locally stored photos from the client side. For examples and full documentation, see the Photo Submission method page.

Brightcove Smart Player Javascript integration

Brightcove videos can be loaded in a variety of ways. The information necessary to load these videos in the browser is now returned in the Videos block of the response elements. See the API Basics page for details on the new response items that were added to support Brightcove videos.

Story rating field exposed in the response

The story display response has a new block called “StoryRating” that contains two fields:

  • Average score – average of the rating feedback score displayed for each story ID
  • Range – range of the average score

Special product attributes exposed in the response

The product display response has new fields for each of the following five product attributes:

  • EANs
  • UPCs
  • ISBNs
  • ModelNumbers
  • ManufacturerPartNumbers

New filtering capabilities

The following new filters are available:

  • Affiliation filter on reviews
  • Brand answer filters on questions and answers
  • Brand external ID filter for reviews, stories, questions, and products
  • Content locale filter inline ratings (statistics.json)

For more information, see the appropriate method’s documentation.

Platform API release notes, version 5.3

We are pleased to announce that the following functionality has been developed for version 5.3:

  • Hosted authentication – email
  • Feedback submission for comments
  • RatingDistribution (Histogram data) and SecondaryRatingsAverages added to review statistics
  • Time zone changed to UTC
  • Error codes added to form errors
  • Syndication attribution on reviews

More detailed information on each of these items is listed below. For complete documentation, refer to the Platform API documentation, version 5.3.

Hosted authentication – email

Hosted email authentication can be used during submission to confirm the identity of a content submitter. When submitting content for the first time, a user receives an email containing a link. When the link is clicked, the user is directed to a landing page that calls back to the API to confirm their identity. This call results in the generation of an encrypted user token that can be used in subsequent submission calls. Depending on your configuration, the submitter’s content might not be accepted until the confirmation call is submitted. In order to use this feature, you must have hosted authentication enabled for your submission process. If you need more information, read the “Bazaarvoice hosted authentication reference guide” and the submission method documentation for details on the required parameters.

Feedback submission for comments

Feedback submission for review comments and story comments is now supported in addition to the existing support for feedback submission on reviews, questions, answers, and stories. For complete documentation, see the Feedback Submission method page.

RatingDistribution and SecondaryRatingsAverages added to review statistics

New RatingDistribution and SecondaryRatingsAverages blocks have been added to the ReviewStatistics block. You can now see the distribution of ratings for each product, which allows you to construct a rating histogram. You can also see the average rating of your secondary rating dimensions for reviews in relation to products and authors.

Time zone changed to UTC

The API now returns all time data using UTC (+00:00) to avoid the confusion of multiple time zones. The date format has not changed.

Error codes added to form errors

The API response has been updated to return error codes in addition to the existing error message for all form errors. A complete listing of the error codes can be found in each submission method.

Syndication attribution on reviews

All reviews have an “isSyndicated” field set to true or false. If the review is syndicated, a SyndicationSource block is displayed with details of where the review is being syndicated from. Syndicated content can only be returned if the API key is configured to show syndicated content.

Platform API Release Notes, Version 5.2

We are pleased to announce that the following functionality has been developed for version 5.2:

  • Helpfulness and inappropriate content feedback submission enabled
  • ContentLocale no longer filtered implicitly by default
  • Product and category attributes populated as a map
  • Hosted video submission and display updated
  • Inline ratings data exposed for product-based review statistics

More detailed information on each of these items is listed below. For complete documentation, refer to the Platform API Documentation, version 5.2.

Helpfulness and inappropriate feedback

Submission of helpfulness votes and inappropriate feedback can now be done through the API. The response for the user-generated content has also been updated to display the actual inappropriate feedback and total vote and feedback counts. In order for inappropriate feedback to be populated, the API key must be updated.

Implicit default ContentLocale filter removed

There is no longer any implicit ContentLocale filter if none is specified as an argument. If no filter is provided, all content will be returned, regardless of what locale the content is in. There is a default locale defined for every API key. Prior to version 5.2, if the locale parameter was used, it caused an implied ContentLocale filter to be used.

Note that version 5.2 does not change the behavior of explicitly supplied ContentLocale filters. In addition, you can now ask for labels in any locale and specify a different content locale. Therefore, if you request a locale of en_US and a ContentLocale of fr_FR, you get English labels and French content.

Product and category attributes

Products and categories now have a new attributes field populated. This field contains a map of attributes provided to Bazaarvoice from a product feed import.

Hosted video submission and display

Video elements of all content now contain URLs that can be used to embed the video into an HTML page. Bazaarvoice provides boilerplate HTML tags for use with embedding these videos. For more information, see the API Basics page.

Inline ratings data

A new method has been created to provide a quick way to access inline ratings data for products. For complete documentation, see the Statistics Display method page.

Home Depot using the Platform API to show off their UGC

Clients like the Home Depot are using ideas from our Inspiration Gallery to find innovative ways to show off their user-generated content (UGC) and demonstrate the importance of listening to their customers.

The following image is taken from a Home Depot Store Managers meeting which had all store managers as well as suppliers in attendance. It shows real-time reviews on a globe using a Google Earth placemark based on the reviewer’s IP address.

homedepot_earth_app

Want to try it for yourself?

Click here to apply for an API key, then click here to download the reference app. Don’t forget to send us a picture or video of your app in motion.

Platform API Release Notes, Version 5.1

We are pleased to announce that the following functionality has been developed for version 5.1:

  • ReviewStats updated
  • Moderator Codes for user-generated content (UGC) exposed
  • Wildcard character in ContentLocale filter enabled
  • IP address in Content Display exposed
  • API key creation and management added to the client portal

More detailed information on each of these items is listed below. For complete documentation, refer to the Platform API Documentation, version 5.1.

ReviewStats

Review statistics for Products now returns ReviewStats, which account for product family data in the statistics calculations. Prior to version 5.1, the ReviewStats were returning NativeStats, which do not take product families into account.

Moderator Codes

Moderator codes (content codes) can now be explicitly requested and filtered. A new filter (ModeratorCode) has been added and can accept any moderator code values. For a list of all moderator codes, see the API Basics page. In addition, a new value for the attribute parameter (ModeratorCodes) has been added and must be requested in order to filter by ModeratorCode.

Wildcard character in ContentLocale filter

The ContentLocale filter now accepts the asterisk (‘*’) as a wildcard character. This wildcard character represents zero or more characters. Adding the wildcard enables filtering for multiple locales without requiring each one to be listed. For example, &Filter=ContentLocale:eq:en* would return all the English locales (en_US, en_CA, en_GB, etc.). When the ContentLocale filter is set to the wildcard character, it is the equivalent of requesting all locales. It is important to note that the value of the filter cannot start with a wildcard filter. For example, &Filter=ContentLocale:eq:*_US is not a valid filter.

IP address in Content Display

When the API key is configured to allow access to IP addresses, you will either get the IP address back or null inside the IpAddress element. If you are interested in getting access to IP address within an application, contact technical support.

API key creation and management in the client portal

For clients that have signed the API Data Agreement, they can now create and manage their Developer API keys via the client portal. This functionality allows you to self-manage the API keys that you use to create applications using the Developer Platform APIs and tools. A detailed list of the prerequisites and procedures for creating, viewing and editing your API keys can be found in the Bazaarvoice Release Notes, version 5.1. (You have to log in to the Spark portal to view.)

Additon of Wildcard character in ContentLocale filter is going to be very useful as it is required quite often. All the new functionalites might now change and make it easier to access the platform for new version.