Since mid summer we’ve seen an uptick in the number of submitted mashups that use the Twilio API. Twilio (a ProgrammableWeb sponsor) offers extensive documentation that along with their bi-weekly contest encourages developers to create a variety of mashups, many which make their way into our directory. This week we’ll take a look at some of our favorites that have been recently submitted.
File Storage APIs have gone mainstream in the last year and developers are in a race to integrate the popular file storage options that are available to users on the internet. Dropbox has been one of the key players and, with the release of the Dropbox API aims to push the envelope by releasing not just support for newer features like sharing and search but also with the release of developer SDKs to maximize its reach across developers.
Our directory recently passed 4,000 APIs, each one different than almost every other one. There is a single defining factor of all 4,000: in some way, they’re available for any developer to use. They’re public. There is a virtual ocean below our directory of APIs that are currently private. These APIs drive mobile apps, connect strategic partnerships and exist within organizations large and small to facilitate data sharing.
Some of the APIs in our directory look like cousins of the private API. Their documentation is only available by request, or access is only offered to approved partners. And increasingly, there is a paid barrier to many we list. In some cases, the entire business is an API or collection of APIs.
Peachnote is quite an innovative approach to music analysis. Developed by Vladimir Viro, a renaissance man who bridges the worlds of classical music and advanced mathematics, the Peachnote API provides the ability to search a large collection of public compositions by melody or sequence of chords.
Sometimes the API world can get a little meta. Cloudability is a startup focused solely on helping companies determine how much they’re spending in the cloud. Now the company is entering public beta, which includes launching its Cloudability API. That makes the service another API for APIs.
If you have tried to search for currency exchange rate APIs, chances are that it has not been a smooth experience. While there are plenty of currency conversion websites, getting access to up-to date exchange rates to power your financial applications has usually gotten stalled due to high usage fees. Some services charge in the hundreds of dollars per year to get access to these rates. If CurrencyBot and the Open Source Exchange Rates API project has its way, this could be a problem of the past.
At first glance you may think CloudMine is trying to put me out of buisness. As a contract developer, I find myself frequently working with APIs, and occasionally building them. The APIs I’ve built don’t make their way into ProgrammableWeb’s directory, for the most part they’re private APIs used by mobile devices to store user data and access dynamic content. Now the CloudMine API wants to provide that as a service for any mobile application.
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