LetsBuyIt Blog

We have previously already written about APIs in our Mashup Article and the Opensocial Project but this one is of particular interest for media and content websites. Google has just published that it has set up a YouTube API along with developer docs on how to adapt and use the API. Now developers can customise and develop their own YouTube which many developers and bloggers have been waiting for I think! These are the features as shown on the page of the YouTube APIs and Tools:

(Source: Google)

A while ago we wrote an article about the API project called OpenSocial, which can be eventually plugged into many portals and systems. When Google, MySpace and consorts launch an initiative such as OpenSocial, then it means serious business.

What happens when the giant Microsoft opens up their ports for outside developers? You should read this article “Microsoft to Share More Technical Secrets” published by NYTimes. This inevitably implies some sort of revolution!

We have previously written about API and it’s one of the keywords of development in the last few months. When popular API are provided for the third-party innovators, there is a huge demand, as we can see with GoogleMaps and the over 4000 applications on Facebook itself.

With the growing availability of API it became more difficult to understand them all and that is why Google decided to simplify the development for websites and developers by creating one development platform called: OpenSocial.

This is how Google explains it on their website: “The ultimate goal is for any social website to be able to implement the APIs and host 3rd party social applications. Because it is based on the famous standard of HTML and Javascript it is easy to be learnt and quick to be applied. “

The following websites implementing the OpenSocial Standard are some websites which imply to revolutionize the development industry inevitably:

MySpace, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, und XING to name just a few of all participants.

If Facebook does not join this initiative we are bound to see an interesting competition.

Wikipedia defines a mash-up like this: “An application which combines the contents coming from several more or less heterogeneous applications”.

In the world of the Web, this corresponds more precisely to a website which gathers the services suggested by other already existing sites via the use of modules, called Application Programming Interface (API), such as Google Maps. These modules are developed by editors who see the means there, of offering their services to a greater number, and to thus make an additional publicity with their company. Everyone gains there!

Everyone gains there… at the same time, yes and no. Even if sometimes the use of certain APIs can lead to a new service suggested exclusively by the mash-up, the mash-ups depend on content proposed by others, pertaining to others, which makes their situation sometimes unstable.

This being said, the new development of the mash-ups awaits answers. The Net surfers who saw the services multiply in recent times, now wish to see all of them united to interact and communicate between them on one single interface!!