Some APIs (or Web Services) provide completely public data, that requires no authentication. Others, like the Github API, have some public data and some protected by authentication. Some are only accessible by authenticating, and most require authentication so that we can create resources. One particular library that can help us do that is hello.js.
When accessing APIs, we need to be aware of Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) limitations that might be enforced by the API provider. A hacky workaround to CORS limitations is a request method called JSONP that exploits <script> tags. Some APIs require secure keys that should never be exposed and thus require some kind of backend proxy service.
While hello.js can get us access to lots of authenticated APIs, the following is a large list of APIs that provide a mix of public, JSONP-able, or proxy-able services:
- meetup - http://www.meetup.com/meetup_api/
- klout - https://klout.com/s/developers/v2
- twitter - https://dev.twitter.com/
- twitter "intents" (put interactive widgets on your page and have someone tweet/reply to you via twitter) - https://dev.twitter.com/docs/intents
- twitter for websites (follow button, embed tweets on a page) - https://dev.twitter.com/docs/tfw
- REST API (uses OAuth) - https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1
- facebook - https://developers.facebook.com/
- linkedin - https://developer.linkedin.com/apis
- foursquare - https://developer.foursquare.com/
- yelp - http://www.yelp.com/developers/documentation/v2/search_api
- github - https://developer.github.com/v3/
- Yummly - https://developer.yummly.com/
- Capitol Words - http://capitolwords.org/term/code/?search=1
- CDC - https://data.cdc.gov/ and http://wonder.cdc.gov/
- Federal Data.gov project - https://www.data.gov/developers/apis
- Forecast.io - https://developer.forecast.io/
Using the Google SDK (a .js file) may be necessary and the easiest way to get started with Google APIs
- https://developers.google.com/api-client-library/javascript/start/start-js
- https://developers.google.com/apis-explorer/#p/
-
maps, directions, geocoder, places, etc - https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/
-
static maps - just a url for an image, e.g.:
-
streetview api - again just a url, e.g.: http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/streetview?size=400x400&location=40.720032,-73.988354&fov=90&heading=235&pitch=10
-
tasks - https://developers.google.com/google-apps/tasks/v1/reference/tasks/update
-
Google custom search engine - https://developers.google.com/custom-search/json-api/v1/overview
- Spotify - https://developer.spotify.com/
- Soundcloud - https://developers.soundcloud.com/
- Deezer - http://developers.deezer.com/
- Grooveshark - http://developers.grooveshark.com/
- Rdio - http://www.rdio.com/developers/
- YouTube - https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/getting-started
- Vimeo - https://developer.vimeo.com/
- BandsInTown - http://www.bandsintown.com/api/overview
- Dolby Audio - http://developer.dolby.com/
- Flickr - https://www.flickr.com/services/api/
- PlaceKitten - http://placekitten.com/
- PlaceBacn - http://placebacn.com/
- LoremPixel - http://lorempixel.com/
-
Dropbox - https://www.dropbox.com/developers/datastore
- also, embeddable JS widgets on your page -> https://www.dropbox.com/developers/dropins
-
Firebase - https://www.firebase.com/how-it-works.html
-
Parse - https://parse.com/docs/js_guide#javascript_guide - https://parse.com/downloads/javascript/parse-1.2.19.js
-
Meteor (has a deploy tool just like heroku, comes with front end and back end code) - http://docs.meteor.com/#top
- Stripe - https://stripe.com/docs/api - https://stripe.com/docs/stripe.js
- Braintree - https://developers.braintreepayments.com/javascript+node/start/overview
- Paypal - https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/
- Snipcart - https://snipcart.com/
- Gumroad - "Buy button right on your site" - https://gumroad.com/overlay
- also, embed a product widget right on site - https://gumroad.com/embed
- https://gumroad.com/api
- Helium - https://gethelium.com/
- Producthunt - https://github.com/karan/Hook
- Trello - https://trello.com/docs/
- HackerNews - http://api.ihackernews.com/
- https://github.com/HackerNews/API
- Track Ships / Vessels - http://www.fleetmon.com/faq/public_api
- Wikipedia - http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page
- Untappd - https://untappd.com/api/docs
- BreweryDB - http://www.brewerydb.com/developers
- 23andme - https://api.23andme.com/
- NYT - http://developer.nytimes.com/docs
- NPR - http://dev.npr.org/
- EasyPost - Shipping integration and postage ordering with FedEx/UPS/USPS/DHL - https://www.easypost.com/
- Wit - natural language processing - http://labs.wit.ai/demo/index.html
- Nest - https://developer.nest.com/documentation/control
- FlightAware - http://flightaware.com/commercial/flightxml/
- IMDB / OMDB - http://www.omdbapi.com/
- DictionaryAPI - http://dictionaryapi.com/ - example at http://whispering-island-7828.herokuapp.com/#magic
- Trulia - http://developer.trulia.com/
- Zillow - http://www.zillow.com/howto/api/PropertyDetailsAPIOverview.htm
- http://www.getziptastic.com/
- USA jobs - http://search.digitalgov.gov/developer/jobs.html
- current API you're using: http://www.authenticjobs.com/api/documentation/
- possible XML API: http://www.indeed.com/jsp/apiinfo.jsp
- JS-based API for LinkedIn Jobs: https://developer.linkedin.com/documents/getting-started-javascript-api
- Stack Overflow XML feed: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/feed?searchTerm=javascript&location=tx&range=160&distanceUnits=Miles
- Uber - https://developer.uber.com/
- The LEAP Motion - https://www.leapmotion.com/ - https://developer.leapmotion.com/documentation/skeletal/javascript/index.html
- Oculus - http://www.oculus.com/dk2/ - https://github.com/Instrument/oculus-bridge
- Tessel - https://tessel.io/ - https://tessel.io/docs
- Nest - https://nest.com/ - https://developer.nest.com/documentation/control - https://developer.nest.com/documentation/alert
This last section is all about Browser APIs available to us. We've encountered a few already, such as the requestAnimationFrame() function that syncs our drawing and DOM manipulation code to the computer's 60Hz refresh rate.
These are great to explore and build on-top of, because they are what create truly immersive applications.
- Device Orientation (http://simpl.info/deviceorientation/)
getUserMedia()(http://simpl.info/getusermedia/)- Geolocation (https://github.com/samdutton/simpl/blob/master/geolocation/js/main.js)
- Fullscreen API (http://simpl.info/fullscreen/)
- HTML5 Input types (http://simpl.info/inputtypes/)
- localStorage (http://simpl.info/localstorage/)
- Mutation Observer (http://simpl.info/mutationobserver/)
- Object.observe() (http://simpl.info/observe/)
- Notification API (http://aurelio.audero.it/demo/web-notifications-api-demo.html) and (http://caniuse.com/notifications)
- Page Visibility API (http://simpl.info/pagevisibility/)
- Web Workers (http://simpl.info/webworkers/)
- Web Speech API (https://simpl.info/stt/) and Web Speech SYnthesis API (http://simpl.info/tts/)
- GamePad API (http://caniuse.com/#feat=gamepad) and (http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/doodles/gamepad/)
- online/offline status (http://caniuse.com/online-status)
- requestAnimationFrame (http://caniuse.com/requestanimationframe)
- screen orientation API - lock the screen in a particular direction (http://aurelio.audero.it/demo/screen-orientation-api-demo.html) and (http://caniuse.com/screen-orientation)