Why did Pinterest remove its API documentation earlier this year? Well, apparently there is no rush to release an already developed API to the public yet. In fact, it may not be released for a while as Pinterest wants to avoid re-tweeting the #mistakes Twitter made in its infancy.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has announced a new acquisition. The team behind Instagram will now be part of Facebook. The most compelling piece of Zuckerberg’s post declares that Instagram will remain an independent product, which is good news for the Instagram API.
With use cases in chat, advertising and photo sharing, the Face.com API now estimates the age of the faces it finds in photos. The service released mood detection last July and has seen the number of developers registered on its platform double in less than a year. The age estimation is hardly perfect, but gives a guideline that joins a number of attributes the service can return from just a snapshot.
Well, maybe not forever. But Wednesday’s announcement that popular iPhone photo app Hipstamatic can now post their snapshots directly to Instagram’s photo sharing network is pretty huge. This marks the first time the Instagram API has allowed a third-party app to add content to its growing social network, clocked at 27 million registered users earlier this month. For developers who couldn’t wait for Instagram to publish its API (resourceful hackers reverse-engineered the system back in December, 2010), this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Aviary, the web-based image editing solution, is now available via its image editing API to Mailchimp users. Mailchimp wanted to streamline the email design process. Previously, users would typically exit the mailchimp website to edit images in software applications such as iPhoto or Photoshop. Besides being time-consuming, this fragments the user experience and breaks the workflow.
A competitor created an export tool for Flickr ex-patriots, so the photo sharing site shut down the Flickr API developer key. The Google Plus developer page makes some wonder if the “real” Google Plus API is coming soon. Also: questions about the Google Safe Browsing API, free cloud database and 15 new APIs.
Instagram is one of those early adopter favorites that quickly crossed the chasm to more mainstream users, at least within my social network. Take that popularity, mix it with an apparent desire to buy shirts, and it was inevitable that someone would use the Instagram API to create wearable mashups. In fact, there are at least three such services, each with its own twist.
Creating a photograph that gives life to its subject is hard. Once you have done that, proofing and selling your photos should be easy. ShootProof is trying to simplify photography post-production. ShootProof is a web based service that allows photographers to upload, organize, share, and sell photography online. The read/write ShootProof API provides developers access to many of the site’s features, including uploading new photos.
Think the social web is big? When it comes to connecting Twitter, Facebook and others to the rest of the web, APIs are there to do the heavy lifting. The category continues to explode, already surpassing the number of social APIs added last year. Our directory currently lists 558 social APIs, with nearly 200 added this year.
Taking photos is great but what good are all those pictures if you can’t share them with others? We come across lots of photo mashups and below we’ll take a look at some of the best that have recently been added. These mashups share and search for images geographically, view pictures posted on Instagram photo steams and even push photos between phones. Popular APIs such as the Flickr API and GoogleMaps API are featured multiple times as expected. Meanwhile relative newcomer Instagram, which we previously covered, is proving to be increasingly popular with developers appearing three times.
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