78 New APIs: MasterCard, Travelocity and AddShoppers
20/5/2012 external link
This week we had 78 new APIs added to our API directory including a data integration service, travel booking service, user social information and data service, wallet checkout service and social eCommerce sharing platform. In addition we covered the release of the Seamless Food Delivery API. Below are more details on each of these new APIs.
Accthub API: Accthub is a service that acts as an account management system for app builders. It is used to store and mange user's account information, credentials, addresses and meta-data. Among the information it can store includes users email address, hashed password, full name, langage, timezone, gender, company, website URL. The API gives users access to the full functionality of the service. The API uses RESTful calls and responses are formatted in JSON.
ActiveBuilding API: ActiveBuilding is a platform for property management and resident communications. Some features included in ActiveBuilding include maintenance request management and tracking, package tracking, and mass mailing to residents for announcements.
The ActiveBuilding API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of ActiveBuilding with other applications and to create new applications. Some example API methods include retrieving community information, managing package tracking information, and adding and editing content.
AddShoppers Social Product API: AddShoppers is a social commerce sharing platform. They aim to help retailers increase sharing by attaching their Social Promo Callouts to sharing buttons. The platform is fully integrated with Facebook’s Want/Own actions. With the API users will have the ability to sort products by most wanted, Tweeted, etc., setup triggers that will email customers automatically when a Wanted product is released, measure the ROI of social sharing at the product level. The API uses RESTful calls and responses are formatted in JSON.
Betfair Games API: The Betfair Games Exchange allows players to log in to online versions of Blackjack, Hi Lo, Bullseye Roulette, Hold 'Em, Baccarat, Card Derby Racing and Omaha Hi. The Betfair Games API uses REST protocol that allows developers to integrate with the Games Exchange and retrieve data on the games market and their personal account. It also offers transactional capabilities so players can manage and place bets through the Games API.
Buddy Media API: Buddy Media is a provider of enterprise level social marketing software. Used by eight of the world's top ten global advertisers, Buddy Media helps brands build connections from initial point of contact through point of purchase. The social media API allows marketers to track conversions and campaigns across multiple social media sites (e.g. Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Youtube, etc.) from a single enterprise social media suite. The API allows developers to integrate data gathered such as actions taken, sales conversions, etc. with existing email and CRM packages. Full documentation is not publicly available.
Budget Your Trip API: Budget Your Trip is a service that determines travel costs based on users’ information. Users register their trips and include expenses by category and location. The information the input will be shown against average costs computed from other users’ similar travels. Their RESTful API exposes the website’s essential functionality. Results about trip location, currency, and average costs are returned in XML, JSON, or text.
Buyvite Transaction API: Buyvite is a group purchasing platform available via web, mobile and Facebook apps. It allows the user to organize group purchases like event tickets, gifts, flights, etc. and collect money easily through the secure payment platform. The API uses POST requests to submit transactions and retrieve account information.
ChowNow API: ChowNow is a mobile and Facebook application for restaurants to manage food orders. Restaurants can use ChowNow to create their own applications for their customers to order food from, either from mobiles or Facebook.
The ChowNow API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of ChowNow with other applications and to create new applications. Public documentation is not available; interested developers should sign up for more information here: http://www.chownow.com/#!/api.
Coupz API: Coupz is an online deal aggregator. Coupz sends out daily deal emails by city from a variety of retail stores, restaurants, and other services.
The Coupz API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Coupz with other applications. Public documentation is not available; interested developers should sign up here: http://www.coupz.com/api/index.html.
Crisply API: Crisply is a time-tracking service that connects with other systems used to automatically track a user's time. Some features of Crisply include timesheets, project systems, and billing systems.
The Crisply API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Crisply with other applications. Some example API methods include accessing timesheets, retrieving times logged by activity and client, and managing user information and account information.
DeliveryWatch API: The service monitors European email traffic and providers to report statistics for delivery rates, uptime, spam filtering in place, and related measures. It can provide notice of email delivery via a large selection of internet service providers and blacklist monitoring, with updates when a sender is tagged as a sender of spam.
API methods support retrieval of email delivery performance for ISPs worldwide along with updated reports on spam filtering configurations and blocked sender lists. Methods allow targeting of reports for specific recipient domains and filtering by leading spam monitors.
Digitalsmiths API: Digitalsmiths is a video search and recommendation service that creates and leverages data around video content
including TV, film and live events across any connected device. Digitalsmiths solutions help users find relevant, personalized entertainment across multiple channels and devices. The API allows for metadata integration. Documentation is not available.
DRCOG API: The Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) has a goal of fostering regional cooperation among county and municipal governments in the Denver metropolitan area. The DRCOG database contains spatial and tabular data that is used for regional planning and policy decisions. Users can search this database by keyword or browse it by subject. The API allows users to look up data including geotable attributes, list geotable fields, retrieve features from a specified geotable and more. The API uses RESTful calls and responses are formatted in XML, JSON and KML.
Easy Projects API: Easy Projects is a web-based project management platform for businesses seeking to offer a collaborative online environment for team and individual projects. It offers team management tools for assigning tasks, reporting tools for monitoring business efficiency, and messaging boards for collaborating. The API uses GET, POST, PUT and DELETE calls to interact with projects, activities, timelogs, messages, users and portfolios.
eCoComa Convert API: The eCoComa Convert API allows users to convert text between a variety of types and styles. Users may convert text between Unicode and utf8 characters, or between Unicode and Chinese text. Chinese characters can be converted between their traditional and simplified forms. Users may also convert between C# and VB.NET code, or between a UNIX timestamp and System.DateTime.
eCoComa Domain API: The eCoComa Domain API allows users to retrieve information about a specific host from the Internet Domain Name System (DNS) or to find sites that are hosted by a specific IP address. Another function provides access to the whois service to check domain name availability or to find out who owns a particular domain name.
eCoComa Email API: The eCoComa Email API allows users to perform two separate e-mail-related functions. One function allows users to receive e-mail from a POP3 server, while the other is used to chat someone's mail server to determine whether their address is valid. This API is available via SOAP calls using the XML data format.
eCoComa Geo API: The eCoComa Geo API allows users to perform a variety of geolocation tasks. Users may retrieve accurate city and state information for a U.S. ZIP Code, or find the matching ZIP Code for a given address, city, and state. Users may also employ a function to find the distance between two U.S. addresses. Another function determines an internet visitor's country based on their IP address.
eCoComa Marketing API: The eCoComa Marketing API provides users with access to methods for search engine marketing (both search engine optimization and pay per click advertising), banner advertising, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, interactive advertising, and email advertising. This API is accessible via SOAP calls using the XML data format.
eCoComa RSS API: The eCoComa RSS API allows users to create custom RSS (Really Short Syndication) feeds that they can subscribe to in order to receive the latest updates on news or other regularly updated information sources. Users may use this API to combine and filter multiple RSS feeds or create entirely new RSS feeds. The API can be accessed via SOAP calls using the XML data format.
eCoComa Video API: The eCoComa Video API allows users to search for videos from a variety of online sources. Given a keyword to search for, the API retrieves a list of videos that are associated with the specified keyword. Calls exist to retrieve lists from MSN, AOL, Google, and Yahoo. This API operates via SOAP calls using the XML data format.
eFreightline API: The service aggregates shipping rates and freight ratings along with available capacity from over 50 carriers serving both regional and national destinations. This single data source can deliver rate quotes for full-truckload or less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments, creating a central source where shippers can plan for transportation needs.
API methods support submission of load size, items to be shipped, desired ship date, and points of pickup and destination, along with other specifications. The service returns rate quotes and current capacity for potential shippers. Methods also allow completion of the shipping transaction.
eHealth Technology API: The service provides health insurance carriers and general agents with integrated access to exchanges that support their underwriting of consumer applications for coverage. Underwriting functions are supplemented by membership and enrollment tools to accept and automatically process applications, return notifications and status information, and enable instant underwriting (eApproval) upon submission of an application.
API methods support submission of customer application information, underwriting checks to match appropriate coverage, and instant approval with notification of completion. Extension of API access to independent insurance agents and brokers is pending.
Euro42 Euro to Gulden API: The Euro42 Euro to Gulden API is a currency conversion service that allows users to convert between Euros and Guldens. "Gulden" is the German word for a gold penny, equivalent to the Dutch term "Guilder". Guldens have been used in a number of European countries, though which country the Guldens in this API are meant to be from is unspecified.
All API documentation is in English, but the rest of the website is in Dutch.
FAROO API: FAROO is a web search engine. FAROO's search functionality is based on peer-to-peer (P2P) searching, user-generated reviews and attention, and webpage popularity based on users.
The FAROO API allows developers to access and integrate the search functionality of FAROO with other applications. The available API method is displaying search results, news results, and trending topics.
FixYa API: FixYa.com is a community-based question and answer site. Users log in and post any questions, specifically about technical problems they have. Other community members and subject experts provide solutions. Their API is offered through business-to-business partnership. It exposes their large repair and support solutions database to be integrated in customer service operations.
FleetMon API: The service provides worldwide position, tracking, and traffic information for maritime vessels. It locates ocean-going ships, with indications of last port visited and destination port, times of arrival and departure, and related information. Applications can search by vessel identifier or registered name. Port-by-port summaries also are available. Information can be consumed as a live data feed in raw NMEA AIS format.
API methods support submission of vessel-specific queries by identifier (IMO, MMSI) or name or port-specific queries. Returned data include vessel registration information, photo, current location by latitude/longitude and port, last destination with arrival and departure times, ultimate destination, current speed, and other details.
For Wanted API: For Wanted is an online platform for selling stuff. Users can list their stuff that they would like to sell and at the price they want to sell it at. Other users can browse and purchase the merchandise.
The For Wanted API allows developers to access and integrate the search functionality of For Wanted with other applications and to create new applications. The available API method returns a list of items that match search criteria.
GuteGutscheine API: GuteGutscheine is a German coupons and daily deals website offering rebates for over 8,100 online stores. Users can conduct a search for the latest coupons or have them sent to their email as they become available. The API allows access to all of the coupons and offers listed on the site. Functionality includes returning coupons, discounts and more details about a specific provider and delivering the most popular coupons and rebates within the specified period. Full documentation is not publicly available.
HelloFax API: HelloFax is a faxing and electronic signature service. It allows multiple devices in an office to send documents to designated fax machines. The developers have also recently rolled electronic signature functionality into HelloFax. The API wrapper is exposed on GitHub. It is a RESTful API that returns JSON responses that can be converted into Ruby. The methods exposed are document uploading and status monitoring.
Inbox25 API: The service provides hosted email marketing campaign management for bulk message delivery with message creation and formatting, hosting of file attachments and images, and performance tracking. It provides tools for managing subscriber lists and addresses, bounced message notification, and mailing list groupings and subsets. It also allows campaign definition, list tracking, and success monitoring.
API methods support adding and removing subscribers and assigning subscribers to lists according to campaign and messaging strategies. Methods also support tracking of messages sent, delivery and open rates, click rates, bounced addresses, unsubscribe requests, and more.
Index Fungorum Fungus API: The Index Fungorum is a global fungal nomenclator. It contains the names of fungi (including yeasts, lichens, chromistan fungal analogues, protozoan fungal analogues, and fossil forms) at all ranks. The Index Fungorum Fungus API provides a range of SOAP calls that users may employ to look up the names of fungal organisms.
Informatica Cloud API: Informatica is a provider of data integration software and services. Informatica Cloud addresses specific business processes (customer/product master synchronization, opportunity to order, etc.) and point-to-point data integration requirements (e.g. Salesforce.com to on premise or cloud-to-cloud end-points).
Informatica Cloud allows users to integrate data across cloud-based applications such as Salesforce CRM as well as on-premise databases and applications. In addition to data integration it can handle business processes such as customer/product master synchronization, opportunity to order, and more. Key capabilities include data quality, data replication and data loading. The API allows for custom integrations with the platform. Public documentation is not available.
iOpenAt.com API: iOpenAt.com is a search engine that users can search and return the opening hours of retail locations closest to them. Currently, iOpenAt.com only includes retail locations of stores in the UK.
The iOpenAt.com API allows developers to integrate the functionality of iOpenAt.com with other applications. The API method returns opening hours of locations within the set postal code searched by.
ISO New England API: ISO-NE oversees the operation of New England's bulk electric power system. It seeks to ensure the day-to-day reliable operation of New England's bulk power generation and transmission system, by overseeing and ensuring the fair administration of the region's wholesale electricity markets, and by managing comprehensive, regional planning processes. The ISO-NE API gives users access to energy and market data. The API uses RESTful calls and responses are formatted in XML and JSON.
Journeys Travel Insurance API: The UK service provides travel insurance, either directly or via resellers on commission. It offers add-on trip insurance to travel booking products, with automated rate quotes and completion of policy issuing and management.
API methods support submission of a quote request specifying travel dates, destination, and trip duration, along with issuance of a policy based on the quote. Methods also support retrieving information about a previously issued policy and cancellation of a policy.
Knod.es API: Knodes is a service that provides data about users of websites and applications based on data-driven insights their networks. Knodes offers information about users of applications and websites based on their profiles from their social networks.
The Knodes API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Knodes with other applications and to create new applications. Public documentation is not available; interested developers should sign up here: http://knod.es/index/signup.
Live Departure Boards API: The Live Departure Boards API allows users to obtain the same live train information presented on the LDB web pages for use on their own sites. Users can choose to employ a board listing departures only, a board listing arrivals only, or a board that lists both arrivals and departures. A license must be requested from National Rail Enquiries prior to using this API.
MasterCard PayPass Online API: PayPass Online allows checkout from a site or app using any wallet that belongs to the Paypass Online network. This speeds up the checkout process by allowing customers to use the payment and shipping information already associated with their wallet of choice on the network. PayPass Online supports full and mobile sites and both Android and iOS apps. This service is free for both consumers and merchants.
MESSAGEmanager API: The service handles messaging via email or SMS, configuring and sending messages to specified recipient contact lists. It also monitors outbound messaging traffic and reports on success or failure by message and mode.
API methods support submitting a message, including message body, delivery mode, recipient address, and other specifications. Methods also support designation of a file folder location where the service will poll for new files containing message sending and configuration information. Query methods retrieve delivery performance information to confirm receipt of messages, bounce rates, and blocked addresses.
Mgnet.me shortener API: Mgnet.me is a shortener for magnet: URI scheme. Magnet links are primarily used for referencing resources available for download via peer-to-peer networks. The API provides the same functionality in XML, JSON and text output formats.
MODIS Land Subsets API: The MODIS Land Subsets API allows users to retrieve images taken of Earth by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (MODIS) aboard the Aqua and Terra satellites. Users can retrieve information about available imagery and then choose their desired image data products by wavelength, date, and latitude and longitude location recorded.
Music Xray S2O Partner API: vMusic Xray is a music-sharing platform intended to connect musicians and music industry representatives. Musicians post tracks to be analyzed for acoustical properties by Music Xray’s Song to Opportunity (S2O) technology. Music Xray will then email the user when an industry professional is looking for music that is comparable to S2O’s analysis. The S2O Partner API exposes Music Xray’s song uploading and comparison functionality to business partners. Users who register through a partner’s API account become affiliates who generate commission for the partner. The API is RESTful and returns XML responses. A Ruby SDK is also available.
New Dawn ACM API: New Dawn Technologies is a provider of web-based, case management solutions for governments. Solutions include case management software, data sharing, e-filing, e-payment, e-discovery, and public access for government agencies including criminal, civil and municipal courts, attorney generals, county prosecutors, public defenders, corrections departments, child, family and health services. New Dawn offers and API for their Adaptive Case Management (ACM) solution. It allows customers to integrate the software with their existing applications. Full documentation is not publicly available.
Nextgen Mobile CardBoardFish API: The service provides a computer application interface for sending SMS text messages. It allows both individual messages and bulk messaging to specified lists of recipient numbers. Tools available include message definition, contact list management, campaign management, and administrative functions like billing and service reporting.
API methods support submission of a message with sender, recipient, message text, along with optional parameters like data encoding scheme and delivery receipt request. Methods also support retrieval of incoming messages, scheduling of messages, and service billing functions.
Nimbuzz API: Nimbuzz is a mobile application that allows users to make and receive calls, message with contacts, and share files for free. Nimbuzz is a mobile social connection application.
The Nimbuzz API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Nimbuzz with other applications. Public documentation is not available; interested developers should sign up for access and more information.
Observu API: Observu is a site monitoring service. Observu monitors sites and servers and sends alerts by email, text, and calls, as well as a dashboard.
The Observu API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Observu with other applications. Some example API methods include adding data, retrieving lists of messages, and adding monitors.
Online Courier Quotes API: The service provides Australian postage, courier, and shipping rate calculation functions and modules for content management systems (DotNetNuke, Umbraco, Drupal, Joomla). The services integrate with existing shopping carts or provide standalone calculations. Shipping cost estimates cover almost any delivery address in Australia.
API methods support submission of a package type and size (including weight), point of origin and destination, and shipping date. Methods return shipping options matching the request with rate quotes and shipper details.
Online Whois Lookup API: Online Whois Lookup is a service that allows users to input domain name and see a domain's whois record. The Whois API can be used to check if a domain name is available for registration. It can also lookup information about when a domain was created, changed and its expiration date. The API uses HTTP calls and responses are formatted in XML and JSON.
Openwave Network Address Book API: Openwave Messaging is a provider of messaging solutions with cloud and social integration capabilities. The Network Address Book (NAB) synchronizes contact information across multiple platforms allowing providers to both personalize and simplify their messaging service offerings. Users of NAB can access and manage their contacts, events tasks and more. This can be accomplished on platforms including webmail, PC email clients, mobile phone address books and voice interfaces. An API is offered that lets developers integrate functionality such as messaging, billing and portal. Public documentation is not available.
Papirus API: The service replaces ad hoc email collaboration with a templated workflow and task-management platform. It includes messaging and communications functions tied to work activities. It also provides reporting functions to monitor assignments and process compliance, including overdue activities and completion statistics.
API methods support retrieval of task lists and individual task reports, providing the person responsible, person assigning the task, start date, due date, completion date, and current status. Methods also support creating new tasks, linking tasks in process sequence, and adding comments visible to the person assigned and other task stakeholders.
Plivo API: Plivo is a telephony platform for integration with other apps. It is built to be integrative and take desired call making and receiving functions off of developers’ hands. It provides capacity for conferencing, call tracking, recording, and more. This API is HTTP-based with SSL support for exposing all of the services essential functionality. It returns JSON responses. Pricing details are forthcoming from the developers.
Qumu API: Qumu is a business video platform provider. Qumu's video platform lets businesses capture, manage, and distribute live and on-demand content. The Qumu Video Control Center gives businesses control over the entire video life cycle from acquiring video content, building and managing a library, delivering on-demand video and providing a secure portal for employees to view content. An API is available via an SDK that allows developers to access the platform's functionality and add it to iOS, Android platforms or desktop and web applications. Public documentation is not available.
Raven Slingshot API: Raven Slingshot offers a series of products for the agriculture industry, including Field Hub and Slingshot RDK. These services collect precise data on a variety of field operations that help streamline business procedures. The Raven Slingshot API provides a platform that allows inter-operability of the previously independent Slingshot products for an enhanced field tracking experience.
SalesBoom API: The service provides a platform for enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM). Functionality includes customer account creation and updating, contact tracking, customer service, and related activities. Sales support functions include lead tracking, quote management, sales forecasting, and other sales force automation functions.
API methods support creation and updating of customer accounts, retrieval of customer transaction and contact history, and case/incident management. Methods also support creation and modification of sales lead information, review of quotations provided, generation of sales forecasts, and other sales support functionality
Seamless API: Seamless is an online and mobile food ordering and delivery service. Users can use Seamless to order food and get it delivered to where they are.
The Seamless API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Seamless with other applications and to create new applications. Public documentation is not available; interested developers should sign up for an API key here: http://www.seamless.com/business-development/developers/.
SirsiDynix Symphony API: SirsiDynix provides library automation systems for more than 23,000 libraries in more than 70 countries around the world. SirsiDynix offers APIs that allow libraries to gain full access to all information held within their system. The Symphony API includes tools for performing batch transactions and gives users the ability to gather, edit, load, export and format data within the system. Functionality includes access to the library catalog, ability to verify accounts and logins, access to user account information, retrieval of system information such as policies and much more. Interested developers should contact the provider for more information.
SmartPea Grocery API: SmartPea Grocery is a web service that users can search for local grocery deals and sales. Users can build a shopping list on the website.
The SmartPea Grocery API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of SmartPea Grocery with other applications and to create new applications. Some example API methods include searching and returning grocery store deals by zip code and associated information including image, name, retailer, price, savings, and nutritional facts for any searched grocery item.
SpazioDati API: SpazioDati is a service that parses, extracts, and links text and data. SpazioDati currently works in English and Italian.
The SpazioDati API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of SpazioDati with other applications and to create new applications. Some example API methods include searching and retrieving information, adding and editing text and information, and account management.
Spearman Correlation Coefficient API: In math the Spearman correlation measures the statistical dependence between two variables X and Y. The simple API at spearmancorrelation.com can be used to calculate the Spearman correlation coefficient for any set of data. The API uses RESTful calls and responses are formatted in XML and JSON.
TauP API: TauP is a seismic travel time calculator. In addition, it can calculate derivative information such as ray paths through the earth, as well as pierce and turning points. It handles many types of velocity models and can calculate times for virtually any seismic phase with a phase parser. TauP is available for download, or it can be accessed programmatically via SOAP API.
TauYou T-Image API: TauYou T-Image is a translation technology. T-Image allows users to read in a variety of languages any text they want to understand. T-Image is available in Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.
The TauYou T-Image API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of T-Image with other applications and to create new applications. The main API method is uploading files and retrieving the translated versions.
Teleportd API: Teleportd is a service that aggregates, organizes, and makes photos taken and shared from smartphones searchable. Teleportd allows customers to search photos and contact the owner for permissions.
The Teleportd API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Teleportd with other applications. Some example API methods include searching and retrieving photos by location, time periods, and users, as well as user account management.
Travelocity API: Travelocity is an online service for travel shopping. Users can search, browse, and book travel, such as airline tickets, hotels, and rental cars.
The Travelocity API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality and data of Travelocity with other applications and to create new applications. Documentation is available with login; interested developers can sign up for their API key and access here: http://connect.travelocity.com/.
UN Comtrade API: UN COMTRADE is the name for the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database. The database contains annual international trade statistics from over 170 countries, detailed by commodities and partner countries. Currently the database contains over 1.7 billion data records for 45 years. The API allows users to query the database filtering on parameters including Commodity Classification, Reporter, Year, Commodity Code, Partner Country and Trade Flow. The API uses RESTful calls and responses are formatted in XML and SDMX.
University of Nottingham Get Entry Profile API: The University of Nottingham Get Entry Profile API allows users to obtain a UCAS Entry Profile for a higher education course. The UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) is the British admission service for students applying to university and college. This API is part of the e-Portfolio for Lifelong Learning Reference Model Project.
VINquery API: The service provides real-time decoding of automobile vehicle identifier numbers (VINs). It accepts HTTP requests with VIN numbers and returns detailed specifications for the make, model, and year plus optional equipment implied by the submitted digits.
API methods support submission of a valid character string representing a VIN for an individual car. Returned data break down the manufacturer and model, plus the year, engine and transmission installed, and some other configuration details encoded in the VIN.
Virtual Observatory Services Distance API: The Virtual Observatory Services Distance API calculates the distance of celestial objects from Earth. Several methods of distance calculation are available including angular diameter, co-moving line of sight, co-moving transverse, and luminosity. This API can also calculate the distance modulus of an object or return the current distance of the Hubble telescope.
Virtuoso Facets API: The Virtuoso Facets API is a general purpose RDF query facility for facet-based browsing. Faceted browsing is a technique for accessing information organized according to a faceted classification system, which classifies each information element along multiple explicit dimensions. This API takes an XML description of the desired view and generates the reply as an XML tree containing the requested data. The user agent or a local web page can use XSLT to render this for the end user.
Visual DataFlex Country Information API: The Visual DataFlex Country Information API allows users to retrieve basic information on countries, such as capital city, currency, flag, phone code, and languages used. These pieces of information may be requested individually or all together for a given country. This API can be accessed via SOAP calls using the XML data format.
Visual DataFlex Football Pool API: The Visual DataFlex Football Pool API provides access to information on European football (soccer) teams, players, and games. Users can discover the names of all players on a team, who plays which position, and who has red or yellow cards. Users may also retrieve information on game results, as well as which cities and stadiums games are played in.
W3 TempConvert API: The W3 TempConvert API allows users to convert temperatures from Celsius to Fahrenheit and vice versa. This API was created as an example for W3 Schools, but is nonetheless fully functional. The API can be accessed via SOAP calls using the XML data format.
Wrike API: Wrike.com offers a social project management software that allows businesses to manage over 50 projects in one workspace with the goal to increase team collaboration and productivity and overall efficiency. The Wrike API platform allows clients to build custom applications on top of existing Wrike software features. It offers seven callable API methods and endpoints: Profile, Contacts, Folders, Tasks, Comments, Attachments, Time Logs.
XML ME Get Custom News API: The XML ME Get Custom News API allows users to retrieve news articles on a topic of their choosing. The user inputs a desired news topic, and the API returns a list of articles from Moreover's news service. This API is available via SOAP calls using the XML data format.
XML ME Video Games Finder API: The XML ME Video Games Finder API allows users to search for video games programmatically. The API accepts a search string and then returns a URL pointing to the video games search results. This API operates via SOAP calls using the XML data format.
YackTrack API: YackTrack is a service that allows users to search for, track, monitor, and access social media conversations about them, their products or companies, and other.
The YackTrack API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of YackTrack with other applications and to create new applications. Some example API methods include searching and retrieving comments and accessing information about the comments, such as date and person.
Yi.tl API: Yi.tl allows users to make long URLs into shorter yitl urls. The service provides shorter URLs than bit.ly or Tinyurl and also allows users to tag their short URLs. The service also allows users to track their URLs in order to see how many clicks each link gets, where they come from, when they clicked and more.
The yi.tl API allows developers to integrate the service with their own applications and sites. The API offers much of the same functionality including the ability to generate or get existing short URLs and retrieving statistics such as top clicked links, least clicked links, newest links. The API uses RESTful calls and responses are formatted in XML and JSON.
Zip Tax API: Zip Tax is a service that provides sales tax data of the United States. Users can provide a zip code and retrieve the sales tax information for that zip code.
The Zip Tax API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Zip Tax with other applications and to create new applications. Some example API methods include looking up and retrieving sales tax information by zip code.
Sponsored by
19 APIs Used in 7 Days: Bing, Google Analytics and Grooveshark
19/5/2012 external link
This past week 10 new mashups were added to our mashup directory and 19 different APIs were used to build them. Some of the newer or less frequently seen APIs include Allogarage, Brown Paper Tickets, Evri, GeoAdmin, mydigitalstructure and QuickBlox. The most often used APIs this week are Brown Paper Tickets, Google Maps and QuickBlox. And the most commonly used types of APIs were Music (3 APIs, 3 mashups), Shopping (3 APIs, 3 mashups) and Mapping (2 APIs, 3 mashups). The list below shows which APIs were used by which mashups:
Allogarage used in Mobigarages
Amazon eCommerce used in Frugalmate
Amazon S3 used in S3 File Share
Best Buy BBYOpen Products used in Frugalmate
Bing used in Cricket News Headlines.
Brown Paper Tickets used in What Are the Haps?
Evri used in Cricket News Headlines.
Forvo used in Name Popularity
GeoAdmin used in Streetview and Swiss Maps
Google Analytics used in What Are the Haps?
Google App Engine used in What Are the Haps?
Google Maps used in QuickBlox iOS SuperSample, What Are the Haps?
Grooveshark used in FindTheStream
mydigitalstructure used in App building options
QuickBlox used in QuickBlox iOS SuperSample
SoundCloud used in FindTheStream
Spotify Metadata used in FindTheStream
Yahoo Search used in Cricket News Headlines.
YouTube used in FindTheStream
Mashups of the day:And each day there is one mashup selected to be Mashup of the Day. Here are last week’s winners:
App building options
Cricket News Headlines.
FindTheStream
Frugalmate
QuickBlox iOS SuperSample
S3 File Share
What Are the Haps?
Sponsored by
Best New Mashups: Music Search and Discovery Mashups Featuring YouTube, SoundCloud and SpotifyMetadata
18/5/2012 external link
When it comes to mashups submitted to our directory, those helping users search for and discover new music consistently rank among the most popular. The number and variety of music services including metadata, social and streaming continues to grow and give developers more tools with which to build their apps. The list below includes some of the recent mashups of note.
Hycke – Hycke helps you to discover what movie, tv show or music you should like, based on your tastes. With recommendations for movies, tv shows and music. APIs used include: TheTVDBcom, LastFM. More at our Hycke profile.
MusicDNA ID – MusicDNA ID discovers and identifies music wherever you go and whenever you want. Whether you are in a bar, in a department store or listening to music in a car, simply record a short snippet of the unknown song, send it to us and within seconds we will let you know what is the name of the song and the performing artist. APIs used include: Seatwave. More at our MusicDNA ID profile.
soundeos – Sound and video search from soundcloud, youtube, and dailymotion. APIs used include: YouTube, SoundCloud, FacebookSocialPlugins, Dailymotion, AddThisServices. More at our soundeos profile.
FindTheStream – A meta search engine for streaming music services. Search Spotify, Wimp, Youtube, etc for music, all at once. APIs used include: YouTube, SpotifyMetadata, SoundCloud, Grooveshark. More at our FindTheStream profile.
Sponsored byRelated ProgrammableWeb Resources SoundCloud API Profile, 20 mashups
Spotify Metadata API Profile, 20 mashups
Last.fm API Profile, 215 mashups
YouTube API Profile, 623 mashups
Lollapalooza 2012 Invites Entries for Official Fan App
18/5/2012 external link
Lollapalooza 2012, a major U.S. music festival is only a few months away. With top of the line artists and attendees, the Event can sure do with an application that can provide fans with all the information they need about artists, events and the happenings at Lollapalooza 2012. Here is your chance to take centre stage and get your app selected as the Official Fan App for Lollapalooza 2012.
HackLolla 2012, powered by ChallengePost is the the developer challenge where you are invited to submit your application and not just win prizes but get widespread promotion to all their fans and even get promoted on the jumbotron screens at the Festival.
The contest runs from May 15th to Jun 25th. Judging will take place for the next two weeks, including public voting. The winners will be announced on July 17, just in time before Festival, which is scheduled to be held on August 3-5 in Grant Park, Chicago. The Grand Prize is tickets, hotel stay and 2 Sold Out passes to the event.
The application should provide music fans the ultimate experience at the Event. This will need not only access to artist data, venues and events but you will need to get creative and possibly mashup data from location and social sites to track most popular events, ratings, parties and much more. The Lollapalooza API, powered by DoStuff Media provides data for Events, Bands, Updates and much more.
The contest is open to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States (including the District of Columbia) and Canada (excluding Quebec). To enter the contest, get yourself an API key from DoStuffMedia, build your app, create an account at Hacklolla Contest site and submit your app before the deadline i.e. June 25th. So get going and let your application rock Lollapalooza 2012.
For official rules on the contest, visit the HackLolla site.
Sponsored by
Seamless Delivers Food and an API
17/5/2012 external link
Seamless is a food ordering and delivery tool that connects buyers with sellers and takes a percentage of the sale. This alone is not a revolutionary idea; using the income that comes from sales commissions to avoid annoying advertisements that turn off users while collecting data on restaurants and eating habits is pretty smart. The goal is to leverage the data they are collecting and become a search resource that can rival companies like Yelp. Seamless has partnered with over 9,500 restaurants in 45+ cities and has released the Seamless API to give developers a chance to explore integration possibilities.
I decided to put the Seamless iPhone application to the test, but I wasn’t hungry, so I figured why not see what delivery options would be available for President Obama. I opened the application and entered “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, 20500” and Seamless returned a list of restaurant options near The White House. I hope Mr. President is hungry:
Seamless also has Android, Blackberry, and iPad applications. The company’s API does not have documentation that is publicly available, but you can request an API key here.
The Seamless API is one of 48 food APIs listed in the ProgrammableWeb directory.
Sponsored byRelated ProgrammableWeb Resources Seamless API Profile
Finding Meaning in the Social Firehose
17/5/2012 external link
APIs serve up a lot of valuable data and resources, but the most valuable API currency right now is social data, and specifically public data from Twitter. APIs are essential in not just accessing this social data, but also delivering meaning extracted from this firehose of social data.
While Twitter has a streaming public API available for anyone, only a small number of companies actually have access to the full stream of Twitter’s firehose, and access to historical Tweets, because accessing Twitter at this level is very costly in three ways:
Gaining access
Technology and expertise to consume
Technology and expertise to process and abstract meaning from
One of the companies with access and the resources to consume, process and abstract meaning from the Twitter firehose is PeopleBrowsr. PeopleBrowsr enables anyone to find influential people based on their datamine of hundreds of billions of social media conversations from the full Twitter firehose since 2008, public Facebook posts, 40 million blogs and forums, and other sources.
The new PeopleBrowsr Kred API provides a programmatic way to find meaning from real-time social data in four distinct ways:
Finding influential people on any subject or within communities connected by shared interests or affinities by considering influence, outreach, RT influence, and followers, while emphasizing interactions and connections over follower count.
Deep Analytics providing author-based analytics which include a summary of anyone’s social presence, historical scores, reach, friends & followers, and location-based data.
Action Analytics that provide aggregated social data metrics for any keyword, hashtag or @name, including mention counts, word clouds and hashtag clouds, with the capability to filter by community, location, keyword and bio keyword for any time range down to a minute-by-minute basis.
Global Kred Score that provides a single unit of measurement for influence in online communities that are connected by interest.
As a developer, my instinct is to want full access to any dataset for maximum control. But in a world of APIs I like the idea of being able to access abstracted layers built on top of big datasets, that derive meaning for me, by really smart people who spend their days deeply understanding this data.
APIs are enabling a really fascinating new layer of resellers who are able to derive meaning from the social firehose, package up this meaning into a new product, and make available to developers via a new API interface, deriving entirely new products from the existing social firehose.
Photo by US Navy
Sponsored by
72 Medical APIs: Avvo, National Library of Medicine and NHS
16/5/2012 external link
Our API directory now includes 72 medical APIs. The newest is the pVerify API. The most popular, in terms of mashups, is the Avvo API. We list 2 Avvo mashups. Below you’ll find some more stats from the directory, including the entire list of medical APIs.
In terms of the technical details, REST and XML lead the way. There are 45 medical REST APIs and 30 medical SOAP APIs. Our directory lists 62 medical XML APIs and 13 medical JSON APIs.
The most common tags within medical are 27 science medical APIs, 18 health medical APIs and 14 reference medical APIs.
On the mashup side, we list 14 medical mashups. We named Health Cloud as mashup of the day in 2009.
For reference, here is a list of all 72 medical APIs.
AIDSinfo API: Government info on HIV/AIDS treatment
Allen Brain Atlas API: Neuroscience information resource directory
Avvo API: Lawyer and doctor directory service
Biofab Data Access API: DNA sequence data repository service
BioLabeler API: Library of Medicine text extractor and indexing engine
bioNMF API: Biomedical data analysis service
Boliven API: Online repository of medical device information
Cancer Bioinformatics Infrastructure Objects API: Cancer-related scientific information service
CDC Wonder API: CDC health statistics retrieval service
ChEBI API: Chemical entity search service
ChemBank API: Biomedical database
ChEMBL API: Chemical compound search service
China Cancer Database API: Chinese cancer information database
ClinicalTrials.gov API: Clinical trials database and registry
cPath API: Medical database lookup
DailyMed API: Marketed drugs information service
DeepFitness API: Fitness and nutrition article service
Diabetic Complications Consortium API: Diabetes and health care information service
dkCOIN API: Biomedical resource database
Doctor Dial API: Medical office appointment reminder & message service
Doctor.com API: Physician search service
EBI API: Bioinformatics research database
EBSCO Host API: Biomedical reference and research service
Epidemic Marketplace API: Research data sharing and collaboration service
ESHA Nutrition Database API: Food product nutrition information service
GeneCruiser API: Genomic information database
Google Health API: Health data service
Health 2.0 API: Directory of health-related APIs
HealthTap API: Online health network service
HIPAASpace API: HIPAA code lookup services
HIV Drug Research Center API: Drug susceptibility prediction services for mutated HIV
Hospital Compare API: Hospital comparison service
iHOP Genetics API: Biological protein sequencing service
Indivo Health API: Health record manipulation services
IST Bioinformatics Web Services API: Bioinformatics databases
Kegg API: Bioinformatics data services
Krames Staywell API: Health information service
Medidata Rave API: Clinical research management services
MedlinePlus API: Health information service
MedlinePlus Connect API: Health information service
Microsoft HealthVault API: Health-related data storage, security, and records
MiMI/Metabolomics API: Protein interaction information service
Mouse Resource Browser API: Mouse-related bioinformatics resource service
MRS API: Biological and medical database search service
National Cancer Institue caDSR API: Cancer and biomedical data standards service
National Drug File-Reference Terminology API: Clinical information about medications
National Library of Medicine ChemSpell API: Chemical reference database
National Library of Medicine DIRLINE API: Medical information resource database
National Practitioner Data Bank API: Health care practitioner information service
Neuroscience Information Framework API: Neuroscience resource inventory
NHS API: UK National Health Service
OpenTox API: Toxicology prediction service
Pathbase API: Mouse pathology imagery database
Pathway Commons API: Biological pathway research data service
Patient Opinion API: UK health ratings service
PDBj API: Protein data bank services
PHIN VADS API: Public health terminology service
Pillbox API: Medication identification service
Progetto Tessera Sanitaria API: Italian prescription transmission service
Pulsepoint API: CPR provider registry service
pVerify API: Medical insurance eligibility verification service
RxNav NDF-RT API: Drug and medication terminology service
RxNorm API: Clinical drug vocabularies
RxTerms API: Drug prescription terminolgies
SeqHound API: Bioinformatics research database
TOXNET API: Toxicology database
Unified Medical Language System API: Medical terminology & taxonomy service
UniProt API: Protein sequence and annotation services
VetMedStat API: Veterinary remote advice service
Visual Omics aGEM API: Gene expression information service
Web API for Biology API: Biological sequence search and analysis
XNAT API: Medical imaging informatics platform
Sponsored byRelated ProgrammableWeb Resources Avvo API Profile, 2 mashups
Gumroad Aims To Make Selling Items as Simple as Sharing Them
15/5/2012 external link
Ever tried to sell something on the Internet and hoped that the process was simpler than what it currently is? What if selling an item on the Internet was as simple as sharing the item for sale with your friends on the social web? Gumroad, a San Francisco based startup has adopted that philosophy and wants to take the pain out of selling an item on the web and it also provides the Gumroad API for its core features.
Gumroad simplifies the process of selling any item by doing things in a certain way. First, it wants you to sell your item to your friends, followers in the same way that you communicate to them i.e. by sharing that information. You do not need to setup any store. In case of digital items like MP3’s of your songs or an eBook, you can host the download in a secure download link and the buyer will be sent the link once purchase is complete. You set your pricing and gumroad takes a fixed cut of 5% and $.25 of the transaction cost.
Gumroad also provides an API to go with their web site. The Gumroad API currently offers the core functionality of authentication and setting up your items for sale. The API is REST based and uses JSON for its data format. Authentication is done by a secure HTTP call passing in the username and password. Once authenticated, you can perform various API actions to maintain your list of items for sell, including creating a new link, editing, deleting, enabling/disabling,etc.
For example, to create a new link for an item up for sale, do a POST to https://gumroad.com/api/v1/links with request parameters like name, url, price and description.
The API may be limited but it is good enough to get going and it won’t be long before developers would write mobile applications using them.
What do you think of the Gumroad approach to selling items on the web? Simple is definitely their forte and it would be interesting to see the traction they get in a few months from now.
Sponsored byRelated ProgrammableWeb Resources Gumroad API Profile
Why REST Keeps Me Up At Night
15/5/2012 external link
This guest post comes from Daniel Jacobson (@daniel_jacobson), director of engineering for the Netflix API. Prior to Netflix, Daniel ran application development for NPR where he created the NPR API, among other things. He is also the co-author of APIs: A Strategy Guide and a frequent contributor to ProgrammableWeb and the Netflix Tech Blog.
With respect to Web APIs, the industry has clearly and emphatically landed on REST as the standard way to implement these services. And for good reason… REST, which is generally implemented as a one-size-fits-all solution, is an excellent choice for a most companies who wish to expose their content to third parties, mobile app developers, partners, internal teams, etc. There are many tomes about what REST is and how best to implement it, so I won’t go into detail here. But if I were to sum up the value proposition to these companies of the traditional REST solution, I would describe it as:
REST APIs are excellent at handling requests in a generic way, establishing a set of rules that allow a large number of known and unknown developers to easily consume the services that the API offers.
In this model, everyone knows how to behave and it can be incredibly powerful. The API providers establish a set of rules and the API consumers must adhere to those rules to get what they want from the API. It is perfect, right? In many cases, the answer is obviously yes. But in other cases, as our world scales and the number of ways for people to consume digital content and services continues to expand, this one-size-fits-all model is likely to fall short.
The potential shortcomings surface because this model assumes that a key goal of these APIs is to serve a large number of known and unknown developers. The more I talk to people about APIs, however, the clearer it is that public APIs are waning in popularity and business opportunity and that the internal use case is the wave of the future. There are books, articles and case studies cropping up almost daily supporting this view. And while my company, Netflix, may be an outlier because of the scale in which we operate, I believe that we are an interesting model of how things are evolving.
Netflix is currently available on over 800 different device types, including game consoles, mobile phones, TVs, Blu-ray players, tablets, computers, and almost any other device that can stream video. Our API alone handles more than two billion incoming requests on peak days, which translates into almost ten billion real-time outgoing requests from the API to internal dependency services. These numbers are up by about 70x from just two years ago. Most companies do not have that kind of scale, but it is clear that with the continued growth of the device market more companies are resetting their strategies to be less about the public API and more about internal consumption of their own APIs to support device proliferation. When this transition occurs, the API is no longer targeting “a large number of known and unknown developers.” Rather, the key audience is a small number of known developers.
The potential conflict between the internal and public use cases is in the design of the API itself. Keep in mind that the design implications will not be problematic in many scenarios. It becomes a potential problem if the breadth of devices becomes so wide that the variability of features across them becomes substantially harder to manage. It is the breadth of devices that creates a problem for the one-size-fits-all API solutions.
If your target is a small group of teams with whom you have close relationships, the dynamics around the API change. For Netflix, we persisted on the one-size-fits-all REST model for quite a while as more and more devices got added on top of the API. But given our scale, one thing has become increasingly obvious. Our REST API, while very capable of handling the requests from our devices in a generic way, is optimized for none of them. This is the case because our REST API focuses on resources that are meant to be granular representations of the data, from the perspective of the data. The granularity is exactly what allows the API to support a large number of known and unknown developers. Because it sets the rules for how to interface with the data, it also forces all of the developers to adhere to those rules. That means that each device potentially has to work a little harder (or sometimes a lot harder) to get the data needed to create great user experiences because devices are different from each other.
The differences across these devices can be varied and sometimes significant. Here are some examples of variances across devices that may be challenging for one-size-fits-all models:
Different devices may have different memory capacity
Some devices may require a unique or proprietary format or delivery method
Some devices may perform better with a flatter or more hierarchical document model
Different devices have different screen real estate sizes which may impact which data elements are needed
Some devices may perform better having bits streamed across HTTP rather than delivered as a complete document
Different devices allow for different user interaction models, which could influence the metadata fields, delivery method, interaction model, etc.
Just think about the differences between an iPhone and your TV and how they beg for different user experiences. Moreover, the XBox and the Wii, both of which project to the TV, are different in the way users interact with them as well as in the hardware constraints, both of which may require different APIs to support them. When considering more than 800 different device types, the variance across them becomes overwhelming. And as more manufacturers continue to innovate on these devices, the variance may only broaden.
How do you know if your company is ready to consider alternatives to the one-size-fits-all API model? Here are the ingredients needed to help you make that decision:
Small number of targeted API consumers is the top priority
Very close relationships between these API consumers and the API team
An increasing divergence of needs across the top priority API consumers
Strong desire by the API consumers for more optimized interactions with the API
High value proposition for the company providing the API to make these API consumers as effective as possible
If these ingredients are met, then you have the recipe for needing a new kind of API.
Because of the differences in these devices, Netflix UI teams would often have to do a range of things to get around our REST API to better serve the users of the device. Sometimes, the API team would be required to extend the base service to handle special cases, often resulting in spaghetti code or undocumented features. And because different teams have different needs, in the REST API world, we would often need to delay feature development for some due to the challenges around prioritization. In addition to these kinds of issues, significant performance and/or architectural problems are bound to emerge. For example, these more granular APIs often result in chattier interactions between device and server or chunkier payloads, as I discussed in a previous post on the Netflix Tech Blog.
To solve this issue, it is becoming increasingly common for companies (including Netflix) to think about the interaction model in a different way. Rather than having the API create a set of rather rigid rules and forcing the various devices to follow them, companies are now thinking about ways to let the UI have more control in dictating what is needed from a service in support of their needs. Some are creating custom REST-based APIs to support a specific device or category of devices. Others are thinking about greater granularity in REST resources with more batching of calls. Some are creating orchestration layers, such as ql.io, in their API system to customize the interaction. These are all smart and practical ways around the problem. But with the growing number of devices, the increasing urge for companies to be on as many of them as possible, and the desire for continued innovation across these devices, these various solutions are still somewhat restricted. They are still forcing the developers to adhere to server-side rules and non-optimized payloads in an effort to have a one-size-fits-all solution. These approaches are closer to the flexibility needed in that they are not as rigid as the typical REST-based solution, but when supporting as many devices as Netflix does, we believe they fall short for us.
For Netflix, our goal is to take advantage of the differences of these devices rather than treating them generically. As a result, we are handing over the creation of the rules to the developers who consume the API rather than forcing them to adhere to a generic set of rules applied by the API team. In other words, we have created a platform for API development. In my next post, I will discuss in more detail our implementation of this approach. In the meantime, if you are interested in helping us solve these and other problems, we are hiring!
Sponsored byRelated ProgrammableWeb Resources Netflix API Profile, 23 mashups
API Strategy Lessons from Factual’s Upgrade of its Mobile/Local APIs
15/5/2012 external link
This guest post comes from Dan Woods, CTO and Editor of CITOResearch.com and co-author of APIs: A Strategy Guide. He writes about API Strategy and related topics.
Factual Inc, a company founded by ex-Googler Gil Elbaz that is creating a collaborative data platform, announced extensions to its Factual APIs today that are aimed at improving the ability to target advertising and provide other geo-based capabilities in mobile applications. The three new APIs, Geopulse, Reverse Geocoder, and World Geographies, fill gaps and extend the scope of Factual’s API portfolio. But the way that Factual thinks about its APIs also holds lessons for anyone who is mapping out an API strategy of their own.
Factual offers access to data sets for Global Places, U.S. Restaurants, U.S. Healthcare providers, and World Geographies. Factual’s first batch of APIs provided access to the foundational location data for 50 countries (the Core API), enabled entity resolution for a place (Resolve), and provided mappings to a place from dozens of sources such as Foursquare, Yelp, Eventful and so on (Crosswalk API). The new APIs help mobile app developers, advertising companies and demand side platforms target ads better in the mobile environment, and companies attempting to understand how to target ads:
Geopulse is an API that accepts a latitude and longitude and returns four different types of information, called pulses, related to that location:
Factual Commercial Density: the relative density of businesses nearby
Factual Commercial Profile: the types of businesses nearby
Nearest: the closest Place in the Factual database.
Demographics: Age, gender, race, and median income based on US census data (US only).
Reverse Geocoder is an API that converts a longitude and latitude into an address (US only) or region (49 other countries).
World Geographies is an API that provides the names and interrelationships between the world’s natural and administrative geographies — countries, cities, states, continents, regions, and time zones — enhancing the global 60 million businesses and landmarks Factual currently offers. The API provides approximately 6 million geographies and over 8 million place names in numerous languages.
All of these APIs are being released in beta. The Reverse Geocoder and World Geographies APIs fill gaps that developers of mobile and web asked have asked for.
The Geopulse API fills an emerging need to assemble as much information as possible related to a specific location. Instead of just knowing that you are at a specific location with a certain type of phone at a specifice time of day, the Geopulse API provides many more signals that can be used to improve the targeting of an ad.
“The signals were are releasing in GeoPulse are just the beginning,” Factual’s Eva Ho said. “In the future we will layer on top social signals and many other data sets that will further improve the amount of information that can be used by application developers or ad networks. Both groups are hungry for as much information as they can get.”
The way that Factual is gradually extending its APIs reveals a pattern that should be useful to product managers and designers of APIs or portfolios of mobile apps. The operative principle: Follow the value chain.
Often, when someone creates an API or a mobile app, the effort is a shot in the dark. Will anyone be interested? How will it make a difference? If the API or application takes hold, the next question is: What comes next?
Following the value chain means looking at what the API or mobile app is being used for. Ask not only what more can be done but what are the adjacent activities that are related? How can these be supported? Is there an emerging API economy of the sort my co-authors and I described in “APIs: A Strategy Guide”? If so how must the existing APIs grow and what new APIs are required?
The growth of Factual APIs follows the value chain created by mobile apps. First, the mobile and web apps needed information about places. This is where Factual APIs first took hold. The success of these apps lead to the need to offer better targeting of ads and other services. This is the mission of the APIs Factual announced today.
“Our early customer wins were all around web and mobile developers,” Ho said. “Their next big worry was how were they going to monetize their applications, and we realized that we needed to provide more data to enable that. Going into local targeting makes complete sense given that we started with this rich dataset of locations.”
While the first users of the APIs will likely companies who sell targeted ads, it is likely that companies who buy targeted ads will also use the APIs to figure out how to improve their rules for targeting.
Ho said that many more data sets are on the way. As these data sets create new applications, Factual will undoubtedly follow the value chain with new sets of APIs.
Sponsored byRelated ProgrammableWeb Resources Factual Places API Profile
Factual API Profile, 4 mashups




