Monthly Archives

Web API Sites

April 28th, 2006

How to Mashup Australia

In Online growth maps a future, reporter reporter Lara Sinclair at The Australian takes a look at mashups from a down-under perspective.

Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have all released mapping tools for markets such as the US, but developers have had limited access to the tools needed to build mashups in Australia.

That will change in the next three months when directories business Sensis, which owns the popular Whereis.com mapping site, will open up its technology for consumer use.

Google is rumoured to be mapping Australia for completion by the middle of the year, while Ninemsn has released a beta version of its local search site MyLocal.ninemsn.com.au utilising Microsoft’s map content.

Share This

Posted by John Musser as Mapping at 12:05 AM | 4 Comments »

April 26th, 2006

International Mashup Scene

Web mashups got their start here in the US but the rest of the world is starting to catch-up. What are the clues? Take press coverage for one. There’s been a couple of good international stories on mashups the past few weeks, including these two:

Zerreiß mich, kopier mich: from Christian Stoecker at Der Spiegel covering the history of mashups from music, through web and video.
Gut gemischt ist halb gewonnen: from Der Tagesanzeiger, Switzerland’s largest daily newspaper, also gives the broad perspective on web mashups.

Given that most mashups are still focused on maps, one of the limiting factors has been availability of API accessible non-US maps from the major internet companies. Once the major mapping engines have more comprehensive and detailed global map coverage the rate of mashup adoption will likely follow (the Tagesanzeiger even notes the sites like Search.ch, the Swiss search engine, do not have nor plan APIs).

I have to say that although there has been good press coverage referencing ProgrammableWeb, one of the biggest traffic gains this site has seen came from the Der Spiegel article. There is definitely a global mashup audience.

One other side note: since my German reading skills are not very good, to really translate either of those two stories I needed a little help so I fed them into AltaVista’s Bable Fish. I see machine translation is getting better but isn’t quite 100%, as here is the opening paragraph from the Tagesanzeiger story:

Man nehme frische Daten bestehender Websites, vermenge sie geschickt und richte alles auf der eigenen Website hübsch an – fertig ist der Mashup.

And here is what I got back:

One takes fresh data of existing Websites, blends her skillfully and arranges everything on the own Website prettily - the Mashup is finished.

May not be exactly as written but has a certain charm to it.

Share This

Posted by John Musser as Press at 12:05 AM | 3 Comments »

April 24th, 2006

ProgrammableWeb 2.0 Goes Live

Version 2 of ProgrammableWeb.com is now live. What’s new? Just about all of it, every page is different. Perhaps the biggest change is the addition of 3 “dashboards” which now serve as the site’s main hubs.

Home Page Dashboard: The home page has gone from being just a static site index to a useful page that updates daily. It summarizes the latest mashups, includes metrics and charts tracking API and mashup growth, includes blog snippets, and other odds and ends.

Mashup Dashboard: Focuses only on the mashup and examples side of things, leading-off with the Mashup of the Day.

API Dashboard: Does the same for APIs: Featured API, latest APIs, popular searches, etc. Charts showing distribution of mashups by API allow drill-down let you see at a glance which APIs get the most mashup use (and yes, it may be a long time before Google Maps doesn’t have the biggest slice).

Other updates include:

Scalability: Paging support has been added for the lists. With 600+ mashups listed, this was becoming unwieldy to say the least. And overall performance has generally been improved.
Metrics: This is the tracking the ecosystem piece. There are a variety of charts that get updated daily. Some get rotated in or out over time. Eventually there will be a /stats page.

Content: All APIs and mashups now get graphics. This is particularly useful for the mashups as you can get a quick feel for each mashup without having to go visit the site.

There’s also a new FAQ page, which is a bit thin now but will grow over time.
Community: Comments and voting now for both links and APIs. Other features along this line didn’t make this cut, but will be in next time.
Serendipity: There’s a certain serendipity factor inside now. A few bits of random selection and recommendation that should keep things a bit more engaging…

Lots of other updates, more on those later. In the meantime checkout the new site. Feedback always welcome.

Share This

Posted by John Musser as Site News at 12:30 AM | 3 Comments »

April 20th, 2006

Google Calendar API Released

As announced on their blog yesterday, the Google Calendar API is officially released.

The API uses their new GData, Google data API model — an XML over HTTP REST-style approach that supports RSS and Atom syndication formats. Their edit model for creating, modifying and deleting events is based on the Atom Publishing Protocol. Any language can be used to access the service but Google does provide Java and C# libraries.

DeWitt Clinton has some interesting observations about the API, including Google’s Account Authentication for Installed Applications and the Account Authentication Proxy for Web Applications, expected later this month.

Share This

Posted by John Musser as APIs, Google, News at 6:57 AM | 2 Comments »

Mashup Business Models on CNET

Elinor Mills from CNET yesterday delivered a good report on the state of mashup business models, or in this case, lack thereof: Mashups for fun–and Profit?. A few of the highlights:

“The main reason for caution is the very thing that makes mashups so popular–they’re fairly easy to create, and it’s not that difficult for someone to duplicate the more successful ones. On top of that, it’s not clear yet how much money can be made with these sites.”
That Trulia and Platial are two of the few sites that make extensive use of maps mashups that have recieved VC funding.
And that all-in-all the business model for mashups remain to be proven.

There are good quotes with some mashup developers and smart folks like Peter Rip, who raised similarly valid questions back at Mashup Camp, Mike Pegg at Google Maps Mania, and representatives from Google and Microsoft.

Share This

Posted by John Musser as Mapping, Money at 12:05 AM | 1 Comment »

April 19th, 2006

Rumblings Over AdWords API

There’s a minor tiff brewing over Google’s pending changes to their AdWords API. The API facilitates creation of tools for interfacing with their popular advertising program and is used primarily by advertising and marketing agencies.

The changes, scheduled to be activated on July 1st, were announced on the AdWords blog. WebProNews gives a good overview of the changes. Focusing more on the controversial aspects is Heise Online:

The previously free quota usage system will be replaced with a usage-based fee model (see below)
All AdWords applications must implement all of the interfaces that AdWords provides
The Terms and Conditions now limit or prohibit applications from storing AdWords data with data of competitors like Yahoo! and MSN, as well as third parties

But, as noted in the AdWords blog, at the same time these changes potentially open the door for other commercial applications:

Revised quota allocation system & pricing model: We are changing the quota allocation system and pricing model to create a more flexible and level playing field that encourages efficient coding and application design. Effective July 1, 2006, the current free quota system will be replaced by a usage-based system. Under this new model, AdWords API token holders will be charged a nominal $0.25/1000 quota units consumed. As a result, current developer quota caps will be removed in order to provide a more flexible and scalable system for quota allocation and consumption.
Modified terms and conditions: We are modifying our terms and conditions in order to simplify developers’ abilities to commercialize their applications while at the same time ensuring that advertiser returns are maximized through the promotion of certain functional standards.

And so the search for the most appropriate business models for APIs continues…

Share This

Posted by John Musser as APIs, Google, Issues, Money at 12:25 AM | 5 Comments »

April 18th, 2006

Forbes on Mapping for Profit

Forbes ran an interesting article by Rachel Rosmarin yesterday entitled Making Money From Online Maps. A few interesting tidbits from the story:

The online audience for mapping sites increased by 20% last year.
Mapquest’s monthly audience is 46.4 million visitors, larger than Yahoo! (20 million) and Google (19.1 million) combined.
And that a beneficiary of this competition are the mapping data providers like Navteq whose revenues were up 26% last year. (If you’ve read Tim O’Reilly’s notes on Navteq exemplifying how data is next Intel Inside, then this is not surprising).

Also, check out this excellent comparison of mapping tools by Frank Gruber over at TechCrunch.

On a somewhat related note: social/personal atlas startup Platial is doing some PR about their uptake to 200K Places and 2500 maps in their first four months. Of course there are plenty more at Wayfaring, CommunityWalk and MapBuilder.net.

Share This

Posted by John Musser as Mapping, Money at 12:10 AM | 1 Comment »

April 17th, 2006

Mashups for Yard Sales

In one more little use of Google Maps by the publishing industry, the Daily News in Bowling Green Kentucky has begun using them for yard sale mashups.

And what does the paper get out of it besides a little PR? Actually, a few extra bucks: they up-sell customers who ordinarily get one day classified ads with a special where if they buy the second day, they get their yard sale pinned on the map. Which apparently most customers are now signing-up for.

According to a report in Editor & Publisher, the paper’s editor Mark Van Patten had used tools and expertise from the folks at MapBuilder.net to create the maps.

Share This

Posted by John Musser as Examples, Money at 12:02 AM | No Comments »

April 14th, 2006

Calendar and Event APIs

This week’s launch of Google Calendar has raised some interesting discussion about how ‘nice it will be’ when they offer an API for it. Charlene Li at Forrester discussed this and Dare Obasanjo followed-up with good points as well.

In looking here, there are currently five APIs tagged with ‘events’, the closest tag to ‘calendaring’ here at the moment. Most of these are indeed events-focused, but the API from social calendar service 30 Boxes is there as well:

http://www.programmableweb.com/apitag/events

Given this flurry of activity in the calendaring space, I suspect this list will grow before long.

Share This

Posted by John Musser as APIs, News at 12:05 AM | No Comments »

April 12th, 2006

Yahoo Maps v3 Released

The one-upsmanship in the mapping space continues as Yahoo! has just released v3 of their mapping products and their map APIs. On the mapping product side some slick new features including: