It’s been about two years since we wrote about Google’s Secret Weather API, when we pegged the number of official weather APIs at just 8. The directory has certainly expanded since that time, but growing at an even faster rate is the weather category. We currently list 37 weather APIs, more than four times the number in 2010.
Weather has always been a popular category with 26 Weather APIs listed in our directory. While XML is still the leading data format used, the trend of JSON becoming the developer’s choice over the last few years is also reflected in the Weather category. Since the beginning of 2010, JSON is the leading data format used by Weather APIs with 11 added to the directory out of 12 JSON weather APIs. The chart below shows the breakdown of APIs using various data formats.
Popular weather data site Weather Underground (Wunderground) has a new version of its Weather Underground API and two things are notable: its former XML service is being phased out in favor of JSON. And it has a very clear pricing structure, though there’s a free version for non-commercial projects.
Although many of us currently use online services for our weather reports, some still like to watch the television for their weather news. The Weather Channel is the main go-to channel for weather, offering weather reports whenever you’re in need of them. It recently started to integrate Twitter into the televised reports, searching Twitter for locals talking about the weather. It also has a special site where you can find weather-related tweets for your own city.
Though Google Maps may still be the choice of most developers, Bing continues to be a contender. Microsoft evangelist Chris Pendleton points out a new Weather.com feature and mentions it has used the service since back when it was called Virtual Earth (the switch only happened this June).
It’s 54 degrees today in Mountain View, which any Googler could tell you by looking outside… or by using the company’s undocumented weather API. The service was created for use with iGoogle, but the interface is easily discoverable and covers a handful of other features, in addition to weather.
Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. Except when they’re building mashups. Or so it seems, given how often the 5 weather APIs in our directory get used by developers. While perhaps not as sexy as the latest social networking API, here at ProgrammableWeb we have evidence that developers value a good API for weather, having built over 70 weather mashups to date.
WeatherBug announced the winners of its recent WeatherBug API Excellence Contest. As we reported last month, prizes were offered for applications developed on different WeatherBug API platforms (PHP, Java, Ruby, Python, etc.).
WeatherBug has announced the WeatherBug API Excellence Contest. The contest will run through July 11th and offers up to five contest winners an 8 GB Apple iPod Touch.
Demonstrating that a sufficiently talented solo mashup developer can succeed in building an application worthy of purchase by a major corporation, David Schorr’s terrific Weatherbonk was aqcuired by The Weather Channel Interactive yesterday. The mashup does a great job of integrating disparate sources like weather and traffic cams, news reports, multiple data sources, and historical [...]
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