John Musser, August 1st, 2008 Comments(5)

At ProgrammableWeb we have been monitoring the emergence of mashups and APIs since 2005, and while there has always been steady growth, this year has seen an accelerating acceptance of APIs as a business strategy. The most recent evidence is that over 60 API entries have been added to our database in the last 30 days.

As recently as April, we were commenting on reaching 40 entries a month. It’s clear that APIs directed to the consumer have reached a level of maturity and widespread usage among the Web 2.0 upstarts and major Internet players, while enterprise usage is following right behind.

Let’s look at how the 60 break down by number in each category:

8 in the Social API category
5 in the Search API category
4 Music APIs, and 4 Government APIs
3 Mapping APIs, Medical APIs, Reference APIs
2 each under Internet API, Photo API, Other API, Travel API, Email API, Messaging API, Feed API, Financial API.
1 Storage API, Enterprise API, Game API, Video API, Blogging API, Tools API, Telephony API, Sports API, Advertising API, Postal API, and Shipping API.

The community category has grown through location-based services APIs (Rummble, Brightkite) and social sharing APIs (Postrank, Flixya), while search has seen an uptick with the interest in semantic, topic, and vertical searches (Sindice, KISTI, Simply Hired).

Among the notable APIs we’ve covered in July are the business postal service PostalMethods and the business information repository from TechCrunch. The traditional mapping category has seen improvements from the major players, with Yahoo offering search along routes, Google introducing transit feeds, and a new API from enterprise GIS vendor ESRI.

Sixty home runs in baseball stood as an unassailable record for 34 years - we’re betting it takes less than that number of days for the 60 APIs of July to be bested.

For reference, here’s the rundown of new API listings:

43 Places API: Social travel goals
Australian Business Number Lookup API: Australian business number refernece service
Baby Names API: International baby naming services
Bit.ly API: URL shortening service
Brightkite API: Location sharing service
Campaign Monitor API: Email List and Campaign management service
Coghead API: Web based development platform
Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network API: Community driven open knowledge database
CrunchBase API: Directory of companies, people, and investors
earthmine Direct Data API: Programmatic access to street-level imagery
earthmine Flash Viewer API: Street-level imagery services
EB-eye Search API: Lucene-based search services
Elastic Server Manager API: Online storage services
ESRI ArcGIS JavaScript API: Mapping services
Fantasy Football Nerd API: American football draft rankings
Feedoor API: Feed aggregator services
Flixya API: Video, photo, and blog sharing platform
FreeAgent API: Accounting application services
GamesRadar API: Video game cheats and guides services
Get Satisfaction API: Distributed product support services
Glam Apps Platform API: Women-focused content and social network
Gnip API: Ping and data portability services for user data
Google Finance Portfolio API: Investing portfolio services
GovTrack.us API: US Congress database service
HeatMap API: Heat map generator service
KISTI API: Topic-centric search service
KnowMarkets Address Verification API: Postal and area code lookup services
LinkPoint API: Customizable payment processing services
Live Nation Event Data API: Live music and concert information
Lonely Planet API: Travel guidebook content services
MediaSock API: Photo management and sharing service
Meetup API: Social events service
Mobilize Central API: SMS mobile marketing services
Myplaylist API: Photo slideshow for music services
NHS API: UK National Health Service
NPR API: US National Public Radio
Office for National Statistics API: UK neighborhood and census data
openDada API: Social music service
OpenX API: Online advertising management services
Orange Contact Everyone API: Mobile contacts service
Orderwave API: Order retrieval and management services
Padpaw API: SMS text messaging services
PermissionTV API: Video distribution platform
Piins Contacts API: Web based contact management
PostalMethods API: Send postal letters service
PostRank API: Community driven rankings and bookmarks
Presdo API: Social events service
Project Vote Smart API: U.S. political data lookup
Qualified Address API: US address verification service
Rediff API: Social networking service
Rummble API: Location-based services
Simply Hired Jobs API: Job search services
Sindice API: Semantic data search and extraction service
Singapore Geocoder API: Singapore postal code geocoder
SoundCloud API: SoundCloud is a music & audio platform for the web
Tangler API: Discussion forums services
Tell Them What You Think API: UK government consultations database
TextMarks SMS API: SMS text messaging service
Tipjoy API: Aggregator monetization services
TriMet API: Transit tracking service for Portland, Oregon
UniProt API: Protein sequence and annotation services
Watchdog API: Political data lookup
Web API for Biology API: Biological sequence search and analysis
Yahoo BOSS API: Customizable search service
Zemanta API: Blog authoring extension services
Zooomr API: Photo and text message sharing service