Augure

What is it?

Augure is a service that 'tries its best' to provide rich previews for web links.

How is it useful to me?

You can use Augure to display contextual rich previews for web links anywhere inside your application. Recipients of the link can then check the data of the preview and ascertain whether they want to actually click the link or not. This also works the other way round in that it can pique the user's interest to open the link.

Usage

Ideally, you create just one instance of Augure across your entire application. The Augure class is thread-safe and so can be used between multiple threads all across your application.

Input -

String url = "http://twitter.com/imvkohli";
Augure augure = new Augure();
LinkPreview preview = augure.get(url);
System.out.println(preview.getTitle());
System.out.println(preview.getDescription());
System.out.println(preview.getThumbnailUrl());

Output -

Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) | Twitter
The latest Tweets from Virat Kohli (@imVkohli). The Official twitter account of Virat Kohli, Indian cricketer, gamer, car lover, loves soccer and an enthusiast
https://abs.twimg.com/favicons/favicon.ico

What's with the name?

The term 'augure' is intended to be an extension of the English word 'augur' which means 'portend a good or bad outcome'. Augure is named so because the preview can either force the user to click on the link or just completely do away with it.

Issues/Contributions -

Shoot a mail to dasika.sandy@gmail.com or raise a pull request.

Note: The code is not entirely mine and was contributed by multiple collaborators in my last workplace including me. I am just open-sourcing the code for the benefit of the community and do not claim sole leadership/responsibility of the project in any way.