One does not simply walk into Ustream or Google+ and start making demands. In order to monitor and regulate the load on their servers, both systems require developer credentials before one can perform actions like polling online statuses. Even if you’re not broadcasting your own content, just monitoring others’, you still need to set up accounts. This is the least fun part, so let’s get it out of the way first…

Ustream

Begin at developer.ustream.tv and sign up for an account:

Once you have a developer account, apply for an API key:

The key is a sequence of letters and numbers that accompanies each request to the server, uniquely identifying its origin. Later, we’ll plug this key into our software.

You can refer to your Ustream Data API Key on the “My Account” page:

The key has been blocked out here for privacy. Don’t share your key around. If you keep code on Github or other public code repositories, always remove the key before synchronizing code with the server, otherwise you could be blamed for others’ abuse of the service.

Finally, you need the name of the account you want to monitor. Normally this can be found at the end of the channel URL, for example:

http://ustream.tv/channel/adafruit-industries

(Since becoming an affiliate channel, Adafruit’s URL is shortened to just ustream.tv/adafruit, but the channel name remains the original adafruit-industries.) Whatever channel you’ll be monitoring, we’ll plug the name into our software later.

Google+

If you don’t already have one, register for an account with Google at accounts.google.com:

Then visit developers.google.com and sign in. You may need to agree to additional terms of use before proceeding.

Visit the APIs Console at code.google.com/apis/console, then select “Create project…” and enter a name for the project.

After the project is named and created, go to the Services pane (second item in the left column, below the project name):

Scroll down the page a bit to find the Google+ API switch, and turn it on (not the Google+ Hangouts API, unless you’re also using that for other projects):

Now select the API Access pane from the left column. This page should show your unique developer API key. Later, we’ll plug this key into our software:

As with the Ustream key before, the Google developer key has been blocked out here for privacy. Don’t share your key around. If you keep code on Github or other public code repositories, always remove the key before synchronizing code with the server, otherwise you could be blamed for others’ abuse of the service.

Finally, you need the name of the account you want to monitor. This is a long number that can be found in the URL bar when visiting the Google+ profile page for the account you want to watch:

For example, the Adafruit account ID is 112526208786662512291. Later, we’ll plug this into our software.