Tag Archives: API

Facebook Open Stream API

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last update : 29 august 2010

On april 27th, 2009, Facebook announced a new Open Stream API that will allow developers access the home page and profile streams. Facebook has always been known as a walled garden of social data (bringing lots of information in but rarely letting information out). Until now, the only data you could access was the status updates of the user, and a few other things.

The stream is the flow of information on Facebook, which manifests itself on a user’s home page as the News Feed and on the user’s profile as the Wall. It represents the content a user shares with friends in a real-time setting. Initially the stream content appeared only on Facebook, and now with the Open Stream API, developers can connect to their users’ streams and let their users read their streams wherever they want. This means that for the first time, you can build new user interfaces for the stream everywhere including Web, mobile, and desktop applications.

The stream API allows for reading and creating content. Thus, your applications can get users’ stories, comments, and likes, and incorporate this data into your user experience. More informations are available in the release notes.

Google Maps API, Mapplets and KLM

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Google offers an API to embed Google maps into personal websites. A Google Maps key is needed to access the API, to apply for the key you need to have a Google account and to agree to the terms and conditions of Google Maps API. The key can be generated online on the Google signup webpage.

Google maps are integrated in a website with Javascript. Embedding static maps without Javascript by using image tags is also possible.

The Google API accepts certain parameters. Some are required while others are optional. The parameter list is given below:

  • center of the map : This parameter takes a comma-separated {latitude, longitude} pair
  • zoom : Maps on Google Maps have an integer “zoom level” which defines the resolution of the current view. Zoom levels between 0 (the lowest zoom level, in which the entire world can be seen on one map) to 19 (the highest zoom level, down to individual buildings) are possible within the normal maps view.
  • size : width and height of the map in pixels; 640×640 is the largest image size allowed
  • format : gif, png or jpg for images
  • maptype : satellite, terrain, hybrid, and mobile (default = roadmap)
  • markers : one or more markers to attach to the image at specified locations. This parameter takes a string of marker definitions separated by the pipe character (|)
  • path : a single path of two or more connected points to overlay on the image at specified locations. This parameter takes a string of point definitions separated by the pipe character (|)
  • span : a minimum viewport for the map image expressed as a latitude and longitude pair
  • frame : specifies that the resulting image should be framed with a colored blue border
  • hl : the language to use for display of labels on map tiles
  • key : the Maps API key for the domain on which this URL request takes place
  • sensor : specifies whether the application requesting the static map is using a sensor to determine the user’s location

The process of turning an address into a geographic point is known as geocoding. Goggle provides a GClientGeocoder object to convert a string address into a latitudes and longitudes.

A marker descriptor contains a string defining the location to place the marker and the visual attributes to use when displaying the marker. These strings contain the following variable values:

  • {latitude} (required) specifies a latitudinal value with precision to 6 decimal places
  • {longitude} (required) specifies a longitudinal value with precision to 6 decimal places
  • {size} (optional) specifies the size of marker from the set {tiny, mid, small}
  • {color} (optional) specifies a color from the set {black, brown, green, purple, yellow, blue, gray, orange, red, white}
  • {alphanumeric-character} (optional) specifies a single lowercase alphanumeric character from the set {a-z, 0-9}. Note that default and mid sized markers are the only markers capable of displaying an alphanumeric-character parameter. tiny and small markers are not capable of displaying an alphanumeric-character

An online tool to create map-markers is available on the donkeymagic website.

The Google geo-developer website prodides documentation, tutorials, code samples, demos, guides and more ressources. A blog for Google geo-developers provides tips and tricks and announcements of new features concerning Google maps. Personal Geo Content can be submitted to Google, guidelines are available on the KLM webpage. KML is a file format used to display geographic data in an Earth browser such as Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google Maps for mobile.

Another useful option are Mapplets, mini-applications that run within Google Maps. You can create Mapplets that add new features or overlay your data on Google Maps.

Mike Williams published a great tutorial about the Google maps API.

eBay API

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Today, I registered for an eBay Development account. The eBay Developers Homepage provides support, documentation, code samples, API keys, affiliate programs, forum, sandbox, tools, release notes and system announcements.

A sandbox key and a production key can be generated on the personal account page. There are different API’s available : shopping, merchandising, feedback, trading, client alerts, large merchant services, platform notification, research. The developer center is segmented in Windows, Java, php, Javascript, Flash and other. The eBay community codebase contains several open-source projects.

I started using the shopping API (view guide) which is optimized for response size, speed and usability. This API allows to search for eBay items, products and reviews, user info, and popular items and searches. You are able to retrieve public eBay data in a buyer-friendly view, for easy consumption by buyer-focused applications. The call reference (version 613) of the eBay shopping API is available on the following link. The call “FindItemsAdvanced” is the most useful and enables you to search for items on eBay based on many possible input fields and filters. Detailed informations are available here.

Google Analytics API launched

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On april 21th, Google announced that the Google Analytics Data Export API beta is now publicly available to all Analytics users. The API will allow developers to extend Google Analytics in new and creative ways that benefit developers, organizations and end users.

A list of featured examples from Google customers is available at the Google developer website. All the documentation needed to use the API is found on the same website.

Twitter Applications and API

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Twitter has received a lot of attention from developpers. A very useful list of all available applications, bots, scripts, programs and other informations related to Twitter is published on the Twitter Fan Wiki.

The Twitter API wiki documentation currently divides the API into two categories: the REST API Documentation and the Search API Documentation. The Search API uses a slightly different syntax and is documented separately because it was developed independently at Summize, a company that Twitter has since acquired; while the Search API is still pretty straightforward and RESTful, plans are underway to make it more consistent with Twitter’s other REST API methods. More informations are available on the DevX.com website.

For most popular programming languages, there exist a Twitter API library that lets you send and receive tweets and other Twitter-related information using the syntax and data structures of those programming languages. Libraries for the Twitter Api for different programming languages are listed on the Twitter Development Google Groups website and on the Twitter website.

There are six Java projects kwown related to the Twitter Api :