WordPress.com bloggers and visitors produce thousands of new posts and comments every hour. With the addition of IntenseDebate comments, this is a lot of data. These content streams are available in three real-time formats from redundant servers. They are intended for partners like search engines and market intelligence providers who would like to ingest a real-time stream of new content from a wide spectrum of publishers.

Formats

• The first format, PubSub (XEP-0060), is an extension of the popular Jabber/XMPP instant messaging protocol. WordPress.com operates a Jabber service at im.wordpress.com that allows all WordPress.com users to subscribe to the blogs of their choice and receive instant notification of new items. However, the full streams are access-controlled.
• The second format delivers the same pubsub-style XML streams by the much simpler mechanism of an HTTP GET request. This makes implementing the streams as simple as can be. You can view a limited sample of these streams in your browser: posts and comments. (If your browser doesn’t display anything after a few seconds, try Esc or Stop. You can also use command line tools such as curl.)
• The third format is JSON Activity Streams over HTTP. You can view a limited sample of these streams in your browser: posts and comments. This format is still experimental and subject to change. Feedback is warmly appreciated.

Contact us to request trial access and pricing information

The use of the Firehose service is covered by our WordPress.com terms of service.

WordPress.com Firehose data is also available from our partner, Gnip.