May 29, 2009
Using APIs to Enhance Your Site
APIs can be really useful when developing your site. By using APIs, you can increase the features of your site at little to no cost. Not only do you have additional features, but most APIs are easy to use and implement into any site design. There are many sites that offer APIs, sites such as Google, Facebook, TWitter, and Digg all provide APIs. Google has an extensive set of APIs (http://code.google.com/more/#products-products-accounts) which harness the power of their products. Google likes to apply their internal slogan to their products and not be evil in keeping developers on the outside, looking in and wishing they could create their own sites using the same features. Here is a list of common, useful, and/or powerful APIs from Google.
1. Google AJAX Search API
Being able to include the power of the number one search engine on your site can be very useful. Not only can you allow users to search Google without leaving your page, but you can also use it as a substitution for the default search option that you have on your site. So now you have the power of Google right in your site’s search feature. On a fun note, this API is used in GOOSE to allow the ability to search Google via a command line interface.
Another powerful API that you can include on your site. This API can allow you to display the results from RSS or Atom feeds on your site. If you ever used Gmail, you know that ticker at the top of your inbox? You can create a similar feature on your own site. This API can even allow you to rotate images from Flickr, Photobucket, and Picasa Web Albums, so you can show off all those great pictures you have stored online.
If you include Youtube videos on your site, this API is a must have. This API allows you to do a lot with videos that are linked from Youtube. You can change the color of the default gray player to anything you want. You can even use a chromeless player which would make the video blend better with your site. Most of this can be done by adding variables in the URL for the video, but those can be forgotten and you will have to search for them again, so why not just use the API where that information is right at your finger tips.
Most of the time when developers create code it is for one site, and isn’t portable, or take a long time to make the code be correct across different browsers. Google Web Toolkit API is designed to take away those headaches. The great thing about this API, it can also be combined with Google’s Eclipse plugin.
Google Maps API is great way to interact with users. Using this API you can create features that allow you to display the the location of visitors to your site based on GeoIP information, allow users to get directions to your company’s location, and more. The flexibility with Google Maps is endless, but what is great is that Google has even expanded the API to make it easier to use. With other APIs like Google Static Map API (http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/staticmaps/) you can really create user specific maps on the fly.
Google Earth API is very similar to Google Map API. You could even say that Google Earth API is Google Map API on steriods. According to the description on this API’s homepage, you can transform your Google Map API into the 3D world with as little as one line of code. The only issues with this API are that it is supported only on Windows and OS X 10.4 or greater, and the user must have Google Earth Plugin.
7. Google Friend Connect API And OpenSocial
Both of these plugins are designed with social sites in mind. OpenSocial’s goal is to connect multiple social sites via common APIs. There is a large list of sites (http://wiki.opensocial.org/index.php?title=Containers) which include big names like Yahoo!, MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendster, and even Google themselves. Google Friend Connect has a similar goal in mind. Friend Connect wants to make it easier for users to interact with sites without the hassle of registering, but also provide developers the security know that the user isn’t a spam bot. These two APIs are so closely related that Friend Connect actually uses OpenSocial.
Google Calendar APIs are great ways to stay connected to your users. You can display important events to your users very easy with this API. If you have a site about movies, music, or video games you can use the API to display when a new product is being released. You could also use this API to display holidays, or user’s birthdays.
Creating dynamic charts can take a long time, and can cause a lot of fustration. Google Charts can solve both, and provide a lot of options while doing so. This API doesn’t only provide you with the ability to create a basic pie chart, but also veen diagrams, scatter plots, and radar charts . You can even create a map to display statics, or even use a gauge like representation called a Google-o-meter.
10. Gadgets API
Gadgets, also known as widgets, can provide a degree of interactivity that can take a while to develop yourself. If you have ever used iGoogle, you now how powerful these widgets can be. One beneifit of creating a Gadget, is that you can submit it to Google so that it can be published, and it can be used at least on iGoogle.