Questions on webhooks

Jeff Lindsay, who coined the term 'webhook', said that the difference between webhook and http callback is that webhooks are user-defined. I think I understand what he meant, but I was thinking about it and I asked myself, can webhooks be effectively used by regular users (I mean: non-developers)?

Usually people don't have a clue how the internet works, they don't know what http is, terms like URL, callback, or request-response don't say anything to them. I've heard that many peopl开发者_开发技巧e do not know the difference between a web browser and a web site, they think that internet really starts at google.com and they type in all urls in the google search box... I mean, what's the use of webhooks when you're not a developer?

Do you think services like AlertGrid make sense? It's a webhook consumer that you can configure to dispatch alerts (SMS, phone, email) either when the callback is NOT received in x amount of time, or when the received data meets user-defined condition, plus it does some data visualization. We wanted it to make webhooks usable for non-developers. But still it requires an initial integration by someone who at least knows how to configure the source to send the webhook events. In many cases it only takes pasting an url to a textbox, but it seems to be beyond the skills of a typical user.

So, are the webhook doomed to be used by software developers only, or is there a chance that millions of Facebook or Twitter users will start making use of them somehow?

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I think that something implemented using Webhooks can be made very user friendly.

Suppose Stack Exchange allowed users to define a webhook that would be notified whenever you earned a badge. You could supply a custom URL, or there could be simple buttons to click that would set it up for your Facebook or Twitter account. It could be as simple as the Facebook Like button.

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YES I think this is a great idea. It's actually something I designed in my head a couple months ago and didn't think the product existed.

Webhooks are extremely powerful and having a 'service bus' aggregate/manage/dispatch these callbacks is extremely compelling to me.

I think that we are a long way from the general public consuming webhooks in any sort of meaningful way but I don't see why not. I remember when RSS was a 'developer' only technology.

Thanks for the link. I'll be digging in more this weekend.