Webmaster Tools: Today in APIs: No Craigslist API, Foursquare Promoted Updates and 18 New APIs

Today in APIs: No Craigslist API, Foursquare Promoted Updates and 18 New APIs:

Criagslist cease & desist letters show that the company wants to keep their data in-house. Foursquare provides “Promoted Updates” but who knows if they are in the API. Zemanta offers advice on how to design, implement and offer APIs. Plus: Spreadly integrated XING, Flattr and Tumblr, Hacker News discusses API best practices and 18 new APIs.

Craigslist Does Not Want You to Use Their Data

It seems pretty clear that Craigslist is not planning an API anytime soon. The company has been involved in several legal disputes related to the illegal use of Craigslist data. Most notably, PadMapper, who uses Craigslist data to display visual housing results, has received several cease & desist letters from the listing company. TechCrunch published an article yesterday outlining other Craigslist C&D situations that gets a little more confusing.

Foursquare “Promoted Updates” May Not be in The API

Today Foursquare announced the addition of “Promoted Updates” to their platform. The company stated in a blog post today that:
“Promoted updates are just like the local updates that you see in your friends tab, except that businesses can pay to promote them in our Explore results. The update can be a money-saving special, an update on a new fashion line, or a photo of their latest dish.”
However, at this point it is unclear if this content will be provided in the Foursquare API.

Zemanta Offers up Some API Advice For Startups

In a blog post today Zemanta discussed how startups should go about designing and implementing an API.

API, by thesmith

The article even gives a simple outline for what you need to offer an API:

some way to authorize developers
throttling control so you don’t get swarmed
deciding whether you’re going to charge money or not
usually when charging, more requests means more money -> you need a way of enforcing quotas
good tools to see what’s happening with the service
good documentation
support
support
support

The blog post continues to talk about how to properly offer an API.

API News You Shouldn’t Miss

18 New APIs

Today 18 new APIs were added to our API directory including a b2b marketing service, scientific publication and metadata retrieval, travel booking and comparison services, online human transcription service, large dataset querying service and a facebook users clustering service. Below is more details on each of these new APIs.
Demandbase API Enables B2B Personalization Marketing

Demandbase API: The Demandbase API recognizes a browser’s IP address and then connects it to the business office kept in the company’s database that contains a list of client names and locations. The API increases conversion rates by customizing messages, measuring responses, and reducing the number of questions in Web forms.
Real-Time ID Service works without cookies or personally identifiable identification (PII), instead mapping the IP address to a business office location through the API.
The API utilizes XML protocol and JSON data format.

EBI CiteXplore API: CiteXplore is a SOAP-based service that retrieves data from the European Bioinformatics Institute’s publication database. Users can search for metadata from the CiteXplore database and full text articles from UK PubMed Central. Version 3 of the service allows users to pick and choose the components required, making information retrieval more efficient.

Flextrip API: Flextrip offers APIs which allow online travel companies to create and catalyze financial opportunities through a wide and diverse selection of tours and activities.
Through the API, Flextrip offers direct marketing technologies to increase cross-sells as well as conversions. Utilizing a leading distribution network for tours and activities, Flextrip utilizes proprietary technology to sell the client’s products to travelers with recognized travel intent. The client’s products can receive increased exposure through Flextrip’s network of well-known travel sites for consumers.

FoxTranscribe API: FoxTranscribe provides human transcription services for video and audio content.
The FoxTranscribe API allows other applications to integrate with our service to provide transcription capabilities to their users. The API currently allows uploading audio/video media, placing and managing orders, and retrieving finished transcripts.

Google BigQuery API: The Google BigQuery service allows users to run SQL-like queries against very large datasets, with potentially billions of rows. BigQuery works best for interactive analyses, typically using a small number of very large, append-only tables. Users can access BigQuery using the BigQuery browser, the bq command-line tool, the REST API, or Google Apps Script.

GraphMuse API: The GraphMuse API allows developers to group Facebook user’s based on mutual connections within Facebook’s friend graph. The API then identifies which unregistered users are most likely to accept an app invitation, then sends an app invitation to those users.
The API is utilizes REST protocol and includes JSON data format.

Interserve Job Openings API: Interserve is a Christian community, in partnerships with the global church that strives to make Jesus Christ known through wholistic ministry amongst peoples of Asia and the Arab World. The API provides access to data feeds that are updated twice daily with the latest job openings from Asia and the Arab world, with stories from people serving there, and other useful supporting information. Data formats available include RSS, HTML5, JSON/JSONP, and CSV.

IP-API.com Geolocation API: IP-API.com is a website that allows users to lookup the location of an IP address. The site provides free usage of its geolocation API and supports IPv4/IPv6 queries. The API allows users to supply an IP address or domain to lookup, or none to use their current IP address. Data returned includes country, region/state, city, zip code, latitude, longitude and more. The API uses RESTful calls and responses can be formatted in XML, JSON, CSV, Newline Separated and PHP.

LogicMonitor API: LogicMonitor is a monitoring service for all manner of web-based tools and products. Its dashboard can provide a simplified view of multiple IT troubleshooting operations with automated analysis and alert functions. Businesses can use it to make sure their websites, servers, apps, and more are operating smoothly and predict malfunctions before they disrupt normal operations. The LogicMonitor API exposes various information gathering and stack management functionalities. It allows developers to scale their monitoring operations with to their companies’ needs, as well as to download analytical data directly into their backend software.

Max Booking API: Max Booking is an online booking service. They provide an engine for processing reservations at tourism and hospitality businesses. Their platform allows businesses to categorically customize their options for patrons. This means includes not only different room sizes and amenities, but food options and tours as well. Max Booking offers numerous integration options for their platform including a Facebook widget, a JavaScript pop-up, and more. Their API is intended for integration with backend software like content and property management systems.

Morale API: Morale is a simple team project management platform. It allows teams of developers to share tasks and bugs through a single textbox. Once tickets are created they remain active until they are archived. Ticket creators can invite multiple workers and teams to multiple projects. The Morale API exposes the project and ticket information accession functionality. It is a RESTful API that returns JSON-encoded data.

mysms API: mysms provides users with a platform to send and receive texts on notebooks, desktop computers or tablets. Users can synchronize texts between their devices and read texts as they come in on their laptop or tablet without needing to have their phone nearby.
The mysms Open API provides you with all of the server-side core functions. You can also use the service apart from the mysms applications and build your own applications. The API utilizes a RESTful interface and supports both XML and JSON response formats.

Referly API: A service that lets people earn rewards for recommending products on their social networks or websites. Online retailers and service providers can offer the rewards as an incentive for new customer referrals and sign ups. Tracking of customers is provided and helps analyze and refine the plan for rewards and new business opportunities.

RewardMe API: RewardMe is a customer loyalty solutions provider. Their services begin with point-of-sale customer data capturing software on a simple dashboard. Businesses can use this same data and dashboard to produce detailed customer profile reports. RewardMe’s additional services allow businesses to create customized loyalty and mobile marketing programs using the customer analysis reports. RewardMe’s API exposes information updating and accession functionality. It is intended for integration with backend programs. The API is RESTful and can return JSON and XML-formattted data.

StrikeIron Foreign Exchange Rates API: The StrikeIron Foreign Exchange Rates API provides both current (updated every 30-minutes) and historical foreign exchange rates based on the London Close (11:30am EST) for 160 currencies. Rates are quoted either in U.S. dollars per foreign currency unit or in foreign currency units per U.S. dollar. This API can be accessed via SOAP calls using the XML data format.

StrikeIron ZIP and Postal Code Info API: The StrikeIron ZIP and Postal Code Information API retrieves U.S. census information for a given U.S. ZIP Code or Canadian Postal Code. It can also retrieve the city, state, county, time zone, latitude and longitude, ZIP and Postal Codes within a radius. This API can be accessed via SOAP calls using the XML data format.

Temboo API: Temboo helps developers by providing tools that simplify app development. These tools include code shortcuts that can be dragged and dropped into a developers own code via a visual interface. The code shortcuts, called Choreos allow for API integration by handling authentication, credential management, updates, and more. Currently Temboo has a library of Choreos for over 70 APIs.
The Temboo REST API lets users perform CRUD operations with methods that allow users to:
* Retrieve a list of Choreos that can be run

* Retrieve detailed information, such as inputs, status, and description data for a specific Choreo

* Run a Choreo, optionally providing input values to use in that execution

* Retrieve the list of currently running Choreo executions

* Retrieve the status of a Choreo that has been executed via the API

* Terminate a currently running Choreo execution
The API uses RESTful calls and responses are formatted in XML.

Webshell API: Webshell is an API platform that aims to make APIs more interoperable in an effort to boost innovation. Users can call and manage all of their APIs in a uniform way using an online command line. Webshell includes an API explorer to aid in API discovery. Management features include an analytics dashboard and an API key manager. The platform is built upon the Webshell API giving users access to it’s complete functionality. SDKs are available for JavaScript, PHP and Ruby.