When Microsoft launched their much-touted new search engine Bing last week it generated a lots of press and despite a somewhat muted expectations, it turned-out to be something of a hit. But lost in all the broader buzz about Bing was some news for developers: Bing has an API (we’ve now added a new Bing API Profile with technical details).
Developer Richard Brundritt has created a new Flight Simulator plugin for Microsoft Virtual Earth (our Virtual Earth API profile) that uses the VE3D map control to provide a very cool user experience.
Not all API providers know how to make developers happy. In fact, although there are now nearly 1,100 web service APIs available, many of those API providers fail to really understand the needs and motivations of their (potential) developer community. For evidence of how developers can react to both good and bad API programs, look no further than a very insightful blog post from mashup developer Alexander Lucas on Making Your Webservice More Developer Friendly (Alex is the creator of Migratr a useful desktop mashup that uses APIs from 11 different web services in order to let you migrate photos between different online photo services).
Every now and then a sharp developer uncovers a clue that leads to discovery of an undocumented, but quite real, web API. A case in point is the folks over at SEO services company Index Content, who noted in their blog yesterday that the popular social news web site Reddit has an API. But don’t go looking for any documentation, because it doesn’t look like there is any, at least not yet (for reference we’ve created a Reddit API summary in our directory and will update it if/when this becomes an officially supported API).
The world of music is not just where the phrase “mashup” originated, it is also one of the most popular types of web mashups. With over 40 music APIs to choose from, developers have created a wide range of music-related mashups, over 200 music mashups in our directory.
The business networking site LinkedIn has now launched a new application platform they call InApps. It’s an OpenSocial-based platform that enables third-party developers to create applications that get embedded into LinkedIn user’s profiles. While this follows along the model used of Facebook, MySpace and host of other social platforms, it differs in its emphasis on being business centric in nature and, like the service itself, follows a much more controlled and button-downed approach. And like the LinkedIn API that we reported on last year, access is limited based on an approval process.
While map mashups are what have defined this genre of application, the second most popular type of web mashup here on ProgrammableWeb are photo mashups. How popular? Just this past week the number of photo-related mashups passed the 500 mark, and there are now 505 listed.
After much anticipation, The New York Times has released its first API: a Campaign Finance API that allows developers to retrieve contribution and expenditure data based on United States Federal Election Commission filings (our New York Times Campaign Finance API profile). The API is part of the new Times Developer Network, which will eventually give developers access to several APIs.
Last month developers at Yahoo!’s Open Hack Day got a sneak preview of the new Yahoo! Application Platform (YAP). YAP is in preview mode and not yet available for public use, although documentation for the new service is available.
Popular online movie rental and review site Netflix will be releasing an API today. The new API will provide access to 100,000 movie and TV episode titles on DVD as well as Netflix account access on a user’s behalf (using OAuth). We’ve added a new Netflix API profile to our directory with initial details.
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