ProgrammableWeb has been doing a fantastic job chronicling web app APIs for over three years, and today they reached a milestone, surpassing 1000 APIs tracked. ProgrammableWeb is a great resource for developers cooking up great mashups, so kudos to them.
Quite fittingly, the 1000 API mark was achieved by the submission of the New York Times Community API, demonstrating that mashups are now mainstream.
ProgrammableWeb has noticed that one successful API tends to generate others in a competitive frenzy:
One of the trends we’ve seen in open APIs is that within a given market segment, once one API becomes a huge success (like Google Maps or Facebook), or a sufficient number of leaders offer APIs (like in eCommerce), that a competitive or defensive reaction occurs and soon everyone else in that sector feels like they need to offer an API. It can be a domino effect.
The site also mocked up some graphs from their API database. For example, here is a rundown of the top 15 sectors or markets with the greatest number of competing API providers. Mapping seems to be the most popular, while you would expect video, search, photo, social and music to score higher. The smallest number is even more telling: it’s APIs for blogging.
On a technology level, they also offer a nice observation: 63% of the APIs in the ProgrammableWeb directory are REST-based.
We’re interested: do you use any of the APIs in their directory to enhance your application? How? What’s your favorite API, and why?
Let us know in comments!
very good site for developers
We use the Amazon e-commerce API to power http://www.rsstalker.com. RSStalker is a web app that generates RSS feeds for your Amazon wishlist so you know when the price of something on the list changes.
I personally think the CrunchBase API is fantastic….
Yes, but why Henry
For scraping (real estate) web sites, my favorite “API” is iMacros
https://addons....efox/addon/3863
Compare the 1000 available APIs with the billions of websites out there and you see the problem…
But since you asked, my favorite real API is Google charts: http://code.goo...com/apis/chart/
Yea Google Charts is such an awesome app. No backend skills are needed and one can make an interesting mashup using just JavaScript.
Congrats to John Musser and the Programmable Web team on an amazing accomplishment — I’m looking forward to getting the TeachStreet Class and Teacher API in there ASAP!
Congrats to the programmableweb team! Keep up the awesome work.
It would be great to see another level of detail e.g. Government, does this include Healthcare, Taxation etc because as I look at your charts I am trying to see where APIs are NOT being provided, this might be more interesting than what is being provided.
Thanks for posting tho.
Here’s a direct link to the PW vertical on Government: http://www.prog....com/government (also check the discussion forums).
Very nice and very useful reporting. Thank you TC.
Wonderfully idiotic pie charts they have – but nice work otherwise.
MapQuest API for a variety of mapping applications. Drupal API for CMS.
Passing 1000 API’s is an awesome landmark – the number was 600 in mid/late january, a growth rate of almost double every 12 months – 2009 is going to explode for APIs
We integrated CrunchBase API with our intelligent discovery engine, it allows users to discover the newest tech company, product and entrepreneur at their fingertips. Many users told us this is their favorite!
Yeah please develop one such application for iPhone too…
Shameless self-promotion of our survey api along with a cool example of its use
> What’s your favorite API, and why?
My all time favorite API is the eBay API, which is a great way to monetize your blog / site beyond the typical AdSense ads.
Here’s an example…
http://jamtopia.com/tickets/
I also use the Amazon API, but it’s a tad (read: MUCH) less lucrative.
Here’s an example…
http://jamtopia...m/concert-dvds/
> do you use any of the APIs in their directory
> to enhance your application?
In both of these cases, the API basically IS the application more so than something that enhances the application… and collectively the applications enhance the site, turning Jamtopia from a typical blog to a more fully-featured content site.
All that aside… congrats John on your site’s continued success. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy!
TL
The o’reilly book about RESTful APIs, the very first chapter, claims that most of APIs that are claimed to be REST are in fact REST hybdrids with some, not all of REST requirements fulfilled.
I wonder how many of these majority of APIs are indeed REST, by the book’s definition.
We use http://libdir.com/api/info to access dmoz website directory information.