We continue to work on enriching the Gnip schema to provide second level meta-data on user generated activities .  Given we push 10s to 100s of of millions of activities around daily supporting more meta-data means a bit of work beyond just updating our schema.

Today we rolled out meta-data updates to the <actor> and <to> elements of the Gnip schema.   The updates today are new optional attributes that provide a place to map additional user information that is available on some social media services like Twitter and others.    Initially we will just add the new meta-data to activities where the information is available inline with activities and then in the near future we are adding more platform features to support the scenario where a second API call is required to add this meta-data to the activity.

Starting today the <actor> element has support for the numeric userID, friends, followers, and posts.   In addition, we are now mapping the fullname and username to individual attributes in order to better support services that allow end users to create custom screen names and change those names.   The <to> element was updated to provide a new attribute for numeric userID.

Overview of updates to <actor> and <to> elements of Gnip schema:

• <actor> is the person who performed the activity on the service
  • <posts> is the number of updates made by the user
  • <followers> is the number of people following the user
  • <friends> is the number of people the user has friended
  • <fullname> is the descriptive name or screen name of the user
  • <username> is the username of the user on the service
  • <uid> the unique numeric ID for the user on the service
  • <metaURL> is the user profile link on the service

• <to> is the person who the activity is in response
  • <uid> the unique numeric ID for the user on the service
  • <metaURL> is the user profile link on the servic