for example if i have a remotely hosted site, can I use google's new channel api? http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/channel/
If I have a site elsewhere, and I want to get google to create new channels, send data, etc, without being hosted on GAE, or do I have to be hosted on GAE?
If it's possible, please point me in the right direction.
Thanks.
No. The Channel API communicates with Google infrastructure to do its magic. There are plenty of non-Google alternatives, though - just do a search for 'comet'.
A clever engineer could write a service in App Engine that exposes the two Channel API methods as RESTful methods.
Services not written in App Engine that wanted to use this service could, instead of calling the Channel API directly, proxy those calls via REST to the above service.
Clients that receive messages would use the extant javascript library.
Security, privacy, throttling, abuse detection, etc. are left as an exercise for the reader.
