The Freak Parade

This post will document the useful API’s we run into from time time and don’t want to forget about, but are not ready to use right away.

First, here are good sites to check if you’re looking for an API:

API Finder – cloud service repository

Programmable Web – cloud service repository

Strike Iron – commercial cloud service repository

Sharp Toolbox (.NET libraries, some open source, some not – pretty much everyone lists their .net tools here as soon as they are released, so it is a good place to start the search for a library)

CodePlex – Obviously this only hosts open source stuff, but some of it looks to be pretty high quality.

Random API List in no particular order

IfByPhone – this is another telephony API – apparently it allows a broad number of telephony tasks which could prove useful in the elusive future where we have time to put that extra coat of polish on our applications and wire in the flashing LED lights while magic fairies serve us Margaritas in pixie-dust rimmed glasses.

WorldTimeAPI – here is what may prove to be a very useful tool. This API will take a lat/long coordinate and provide the time zone, daylight savings time, etc.

PilotOutlook – this is an airport info web service. Their license is non-commercial, but maybe they have a commercial version. This one was too up our alley to ignore, though.

Scribd – this is a really interesting service. They have a flash based, you-tube, html-embeddable PDF rendering control, and the API provides a number of other useful sounding services. A document library might benefit from these. From the site: “The Scribd API is a REST-based API with methods for uploading, converting, editing, deleting, and searching documents. Using the API, you can use Scribd as a back-end for an application that needs to process documents, without needing to write a document processing system yourself.”

Open Calais – this is a semantic web service that takes content, performs a semantic analysis on it, and extracts people, places, technologies, etc. Can be used for analyzing data feeds, performing a more intelligent indexing of data for searching, or simply presenting users with useful context information about a document they are viewing.