Facebook recently released its new Create Application API, a slim convenience API that makes it easy for developers to generate a Facebook API key for widgets. The API complements existing Facebook developer tools, including Facebook Connect, an increasingly popular way of allowing for delegated Facebook authentication on third party web sites.
According to Vishu Gupta, [...]
This year has certainly been the time for governments opening data. It’s also ripe with public mashup contests, from big U.S. cities to large-scale propositions from down under. Here’s an overview of some of the recently-launched government data contests.
The digital media world is in the process of dramatic change. For years, the Internet has been about web sites and browser-based experiences, and the systems that drove those sites generally matched those experiences. But now, the portable world is upon us and it is formidable. With the growing need and ability to be portable comes tremendous opportunity for content providers. But it also requires substantial changes to their thinking and their systems. It requires distribution platforms, API’s and other ways to get the content to where it needs to be. But having an API is not enough. In order for content providers to take full advantage of these new platforms, they will need to, first and foremost, embrace one simple philosophy: COPE (Create Once, Publish Everywhere).
The wiki of maps, Open Street Map, has gone static. Its Open Street Map API now has an option to show a static map version, rather than a JavaScript “slippy” map. The more interactive version is still available, but could be more than is needed for many uses.
This past week the new apps added to our mashup directory used 13 different APIs. Some of the newer or less frequently seen APIs include iLike, PostalMethods, Stupeflix, and WatchMouse . The most often used APIs this week are Google App Engine, Google Maps, and Twitter. And the most frequently used types of APIs were Photos (2 APIs, 3 mashups) and Shopping (2 APIs, 2 mashups). The list below shows which APIs were used by which mashups:
This week we had 7 new APIs added to our API directory. The latest include a recipe API with access to 170,000 recipies, a bulk SMS API, an API for sending EDI (electronic data interchange) messages,an API for finding freelance programmers, an API for selling custom on-demand merchandise, an API for project management tools, and an API for sharing photos on Twitter. Here is more on each of these new APIs:
We see a lot of mashups (our directory lists over 4,300 mashups). Lately we’ve noticed that they’ve moved beyond your ordinary application. Here is a quick overview of some recent additions that are fun and useful.
In addition to the 4 new APIs we profiled earlier this week, we’ve had some other interesting new entries add to our API directory. These include: an API that lets you detect a user’s location based on IP address, an API from a Microsoft-sponsored effort for providing government data online, and a new flavor of URL shortener, one that works with YouTube videos. In addition, we’ve added two Twitter-derived APIs: one API for finding the currently trending topics on Twitter (which Let’s be Trends, which we covered earlier this week, and another the lets you find the ‘cost’ of following a given Twitter user, a cost measured in ‘milliscobles’. Here is more on each of these:
Though a few shopping APIs are some of the earliest examples we have, their popularity has continued to grow for a simple reason: there’s an obvious revenue model tied to them. When developers use one of the 82 Shopping APIs in our directory, that can mean money in the pocket of the API provider. And, by virtue of various affiliate and revenue-sharing programs tied to many of these APIs, it can also mean money in the pocket of the developer.
Map mashup developers take note. Google has just announced that it has made several changes to the Google Maps base map, which now includes several new base layers as well as well as more detailed information.
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