Have you noticed an increase in the number of reports about malware and compromised web servers? Recently, a computer exploit known as Gumblar has been making news for its ability to launch exploits via drive-by download. Gumblar silently installs itself on a computer if a user simply visits a compromised web site, where it proceeds to steal FTP logins and replace legitimate Google search results with redirects to sites of the attacker’s choosing. Despite the threat of Gumblar and malware exploits like it, users of recent releases of the Firefox or Chrome browser have an extra layer of protection provided by their use of Google’s Safe Browsing API.
Why is it that the most common questions people have about providing open APIs are often about monetization? While there are many possible answers, two reasons that stand out are: a) the API is a distribution channel, and when you think new distribution channel there is an expectation around revenue opportunities; and b) if you are the person in your company trying to define the business case for an API to the executive team, there is a big hurdle to overcome, because business executives tend to see an API as a cost center and want to know how to measure the pay-off.
While Google leads the way in web search and Yahoo leads the way in answers, many upstart services are attempting to help you make decisions by giving you smarter answers to your questions. Microsoft has billed its new search offering Bing as both a “decision engine” and an “answer engine.” Now there’s Hunch, a new start-up founded by Flickr’s Caterina Fake, which also aims to be a decision engine, but using a very different model. By first asking the user questions ranging from food preferences to pet peeves, Hunch tries to provide answers to questions that best match the user’s interests based on crowdsourced data collected from other users.
In addition to the 6 new APIs we reviewed yesterday, another 7 were added to our API directory this week. These includes APIs for collaborative, social translation of site content, a service for personalized apparel, an API for sharing music links on Twitter, a microblogging service that lets users share information by answering the question “What are you trading?”, and finally a very useful API that gives you access to the rich datasets from the United Nations and the World Health Organization. Here are more details on each of these services:
This past week 27 new mashups were add to our mashup directory and 45 different APIs were used to build them (certainly the most number of APIs we’ve seen used in a single week). Some of the newer or less frequently seen APIs include Amazon Fulfillment Web Service, Amazon Queue Service, Best Buy Remix, Billboard, New York Times Movie Reviews, ViaMichelin. The most frequently used types of APIs were Mapping (7 APIs, 18 mashups), Search (5 APIs, 8 mashups), and Video (4 APIs, 8 mashups) and the most often used APIs this week are Flickr, Google Maps, and YouTube. The list below shows which APIs were used by which mashups:
This week we had new web services added to our API directory ranging from small startups to the big names in web APIs. One of the more notable new ones comes from Amazon with their CloudWatch API for insight and monitoring of your EC2 instances. Then we have the API for Hunch, the much talked about new decision engine-type service from Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake. In addition, 4 more of the newest APIs from last week including ones for collaborative spam control, the ability to send traditional postal mail via a web service, on-demand IT management, and an API from Ericsson that allows you to push content up to mobile phones. Below is more detail on these 6 new APIs:
Whether for exercise, sight-seeing, or just for fun, most of us enjoy walking, running and biking our way through the city or the country side. Below you’ll find six mashups from the Programmable Web database that help you track, share and measure your excursions outside of a moving vehicle.
Yahoo has announced some new updates to SearchMonkey its relatively new platform that allows web sites and web content publishers to format and custom search results on Yahoo search pages. The new updates include additional content types that can be included in search results and support for Google Base formatting for structured data feeds (our Google Base API Profile).
Nokia, with new devices like the Nokia N97 making gadget blog headlines and the opening of the Ovi Store last month, is in the midst of a big push to expand and open its platform to web developers of all stripes. The $250,000 prize money offered in the Calling All Innovators Contest is one of the largest prizes for developers that we’ve seen, along with a hefty $30K in prizes for the Apps on Maps Contest. And finally, a new Ovi Maps API offers rich 2D and 3D views, optimized for mobile as well as website applications.
Popular social news service Digg has announced some changes to its API (our Digg API Profile) that should make existing and prospective developers who use the API a bit happier.
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