901am » API

Stickam.com releases live streaming API

Dennis Bouchand — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:13:02 +0000

Stickam.com has introduced an application programming interface (API) that would bring power of live video to anyone that wants to incorporate it into their website or web application.

By using the StickamAPI, Web site developers can quickly and easily integrate live video streaming capabilities, including TV-style broadcasts as well as group and one-on-one chat rooms, onto their online destinations. Through its use, web sites can take advantage of the benefits of live video streaming, such as longer visits, enhanced user interaction and, in turn, increased revenues. The StickamAPI alleviates time and money constraints associated with the requirements of live streaming, such as bandwidth, server infrastructure and Flash development, which currently serve as significant roadblocks for companies that do not have the available resources or knowledge to incorporate live streaming onto their site.

Trulia.com and Placecast partner to increase relevance of ads

Dennis Bouchand — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:40:28 +0000

As advertisers and publishers seek ways to improve performance to compensate for shrinking budgets, new technologies like location-based advertising provide a means of improving relevance and response rates. Real estate site Trulia.com, and media company 1020 Placecast, have announced their partnership, using location information to target specific audiences for advertisers and deliver more relevant messages to them on Trulia.com.

Placecast adds a new dimension to audience targeting by using location information as the key to relevance. In Truliaâ€™s case, the starting points are the real estate locations in which users express interest. Placecastâ€™s proprietary targeting algorithms correlate these with dozens of other demographic, psychographic and geographic data points.

For publishers in categories such as travel, events, tickets, real estate, weather, classifieds and career search, Placecast uses the location information already present on these sites to target audiences and customize messaging. Improved performance results in a dramatic increase in the value of ad inventory for advertisers, transforming remnant ad space into premium CPM real estate for publishers.

One of the first advertisers to take advantage of this approach with Placecast and Trulia is Avis-Budget. Approximately halfway through a three-month campaign, Avis has seen its ads on Trulia perform strongly relative to other publishers. The Avis-Budget campaign is just the first of many in the expanded partnership between Trulia and Placecast.

Zillow.com releases automated quotes

Dennis Bouchand — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:32:20 +0000

Real estate web site Zillow.com is releasing Zillow Quote API, a new feature within Zillow Mortgage Marketplace that allows participating lenders to automate custom quotes to borrowers who submit loan requests. Made possible through an application programming interface (API), the new automation program will be rolling out in the coming weeks, starting with five technology providers: Leads360, Mortech, Mortgagebot, NYLX and Optimal Blue.

Zillow Quote API provides a way for lenders to streamline the process without compromising the customization of the quotes for borrowers. Once a request is submitted by a borrower to the Marketplace, lenders using the API will receive the full set of details the borrower entered in an automated fashion. They will use their pricing engines to instantly create custom loan quotes based on the detailed information the borrower has provided. Then, the quote is automatically sent back to Zillow where the borrower can view it. With Zillow Quote API, this process can happen almost instantaneously.

Glam Media launches Glam Apps Platform

Dennis Bouchand — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:13:15 +0000

Glam Media, Inc. has released the Glam Application Platform, a platform that the company says will change the way content and applications are distributed and monetized on the Internet.

The Glam Platform removes obstacles that have previously kept applications inside the walled gardens of a few large social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, and enables them to reach over 77 million monthly unique users through contexts such as blogs, magazines, and content web sites coveted by brand advertisers online.

To enable new opportunities for publishers, developers, and advertisers, Glam is launching an open-source platform that allows applications to be distributed across the network of premium publishers with a built-in system for monetization. Applications built on the Glam Apps Platform will be available on the Glam Apps Store for embedding or downloading and can be monetized by Brand Ads provided by Glam or by the web developer, media company or agency; or can be with No-Adsâ€”Apps can be free or priced by developers for purchase for use.

Glam Apps Platform is currently available in private beta to approved developers and select publishers in the Glam Network of more than 600 Glam-owned and operated and independent Web sites, magazine properties, video providers and blogs; the platform will be launched to general availability for developers and web publishers in fall 2008.

Yahoo! opens up with Yahoo! BOSS

Dennis Bouchand — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:39:10 +0000

Yahoo! Inc. is introducing Yahoo! Search BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service), a new open web services platform which gives third parties an unprecedented level of access to Yahoo! Search Technology, including the ability to re-rank and control the presentation of web search results. Yahoo! Search BOSS, available today as an API in beta, enables developers and companies to build world-class custom search experiences and disrupt the search industry.

BOSS provides developers and companies an unprecedented level of access to its algorithmic search infrastructure without incurring the significant costs required to build Web-scale search experiences. By using the BOSS platform, partners have the opportunity to provide industry leading search results. BOSS allows for control over the presentation and ranking of web search results as well as unlimited queries per day. Its framework allows developers to blend Yahoo! Search results from web, news and image indexes with any data source from across the web. Over time, other Yahoo! Search indexes will become available.

Over the next several months, a BOSS monetization capability, using Yahoo! search advertising and potentially other models, will be made available for partners and developers to create a search revenue stream for their business.

eBay to open site

Dennis Bouchand — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:06:47 +0000

eBay Inc. is opening up to third parties to integrate applications directly onto its site. This move will give developers unprecedented access to eBayâ€™s community of professional sellers, creating more opportunities for developers to market their tools and giving sellers a wider variety of sales optimization applications.

Developers interested in building applications on eBay.com will be required to meet site standards for trusted buying and selling experiences. Once approved, developers have an opportunity for their applications to be discovered by business sellers on eBay.com, and will be in a position to monetize their application with subscription-based revenue.

New York Times Plans API

Andrew G. R. — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:45:23 +0000

With enough scandals to earn the pet name New York Slimes in some circles, The New York times has suffered a dramatic fall from grace.Â While it’s no secret that papers across the world have suffered blows to circulation at the hands of the Internet, the Times is hoping to boost online readership with an API that will make the entire newspaper “programmable.”

By opening up the Website’s code, programmers will be able to mashup structured content. The Times expects to make the full-blown API available to the public in approximately six months.

At the forefront of digital technology over the past year with a Facebook app, news aggregator and reader comments on the homepage, NYT has proven they are willing to adapt.

Picnik.com offers photo editing tools through Photobucket’s Open API

Cristina Ledesma — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:16:20 +0000

Picnik has launched its Photobucket integration. Using Photobucket’s just-released API, Picnik provides Photobucket’s nearly 40 million users with its popular photo editing tools, special effects, unique shapes, customized fonts and frames â€“ all from where their photos are already stored.

With this API integration, Picnik users can now bridge seamlessly with Photobucket to edit and enhance their digital photos. Picnik users will have a Photobucket ‘tab’ placed within Picnik.com, have the ability to create a Photobucket specific album, view and edit all their Photobucket images and save their “Picniked” photos back to Photobucket — all without ever having to leave the page.

The Photobucket API now enables all developers, including Picnik, to create applications that let users access their Photobucket photos and videos from environments outside Photobucket.com. Since the Photobucket API works on any device with an Internet connection, those environments might include other Web sites, Web applications, desktop applications, browser plug-ins, mobile phones, home-entertainment systems, digital photo frames and digital cameras.

BigOven Cookbook Application built using Sharedbook API

Cristina Ledesma — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:23:59 +0000

The BigOven Cookbook utilizes the SharedBook API, which is publicly available for any site to use. In less than eight weeks, BigOven.com developed a market-ready solution to automatically flow recipes and photographs into SharedBookâ€™s Reverse Publishing Platform for on-demand output in a choice of formats.

BigOven.com is the first company to offer multiple ways to connect to SharedBook. Users of the social network about food can create cookbooks from www.bigoven.com or from BigOvenâ€™s award-winning desktop recipe software for Windowsâ„¢ PCs. Community members can make a book based on any set of search results on the site, or directly from one of the many Cooking Groups that are offered.

After making several selections, individuals can see an online preview of the completed product, and are given the choice to purchase the cookbook or to personalize it further.

YouTube opens API

Minic Rivera — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:21:31 +0000

To rival Hulu’s opening to the public, YouTube today opened up its API to developers allowing other web sites to be… like YouTube. Web sites can now allow their users to be on YouTube without leaving their sites. Other features of the opened APIs include: Upload videos and video responses to YouTube; Add/Edit user and video metadata (titles, descriptions, ratings, comments, favorites, contacts, etc); Fetch localized standard feeds (most viewed, top rated, etc.) for 18 international locales; Perform custom queries optimized for 18 international locales; and Customize player UI and control video playback (pause, play, stop, etc.) through software.