geolocal apis: unencumbering the geolocal ecosystem

Location Business Summit

GeoLocal APIs

unencumbering the GeoLocal ecosystemTyler Bell

14 September 2010

tylerwbell@gmail.comTwitter: @twbell

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Local Ecosystem

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

Interconnected resources that facilitate an informed, real-world consumer experience…

The Local Ecosystem

http://www.flickr.com/photos/leafy/3826214063/

and the value of a product is proportional to how many other products it communicates with

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GeoLocal

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

Built Environment and AR Daily Deals

Places and Listings

Maps Utilities, Routing, Geocoding

Social Location

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Obligatory NASCAR Logo Montage

Tyler Bell

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Three Ways In

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

Application

API

CrawledContent

ContributionTo LocalEcosystem

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Monday: TechCrunch/SimpleGeo

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/13/what-is-it-you-do-the-need-for-simplicity/

A: See our API docs….

Q: What is it you do?

This is the only appropriate answer to a developer

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Piñata

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

Marketing (paper maché)

API (candy)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/esquipulas/561125635/

- 8 -Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

APIs are the soul of a product

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Source and Crawled Content

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

robots.txt is hugely insightful

as is ‘viewing source’

…both make for lousy presentations

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Example: Google Places PM

“We are going to focus initially on check-in applications [and] have now begun reaching out to developers”

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2010/07/checking-in-with-places-api.html

- Google Maps API Product Manager

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Example: Google Places API TOS

• Applications may not store any Place data permanently except References and IDs.

• Place data cannot be redistributed via your own API

• May only be used in conjunction with displaying results on a Google map

• Using Place data without displaying a map for which Place data was requested is prohibited.

• May only be used in response to end user actions.

• So there.

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

Paraphrased from http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/places/

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Product Design Philosophy

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

The Hallway

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No Doors

http://www.flickr.com/photos/raulc/4429603/

Product does not facilitate new approaches, applications, or

business models

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Multiple Product Options

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brentdanley/211734796/

Product creates multiple new opportunities for exploration, integration

and experimentation

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A Look into some Local APIs

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

Short commentary on what APIs reveal

(now, not planned roadmap or intentions)

- 16 -Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

• Ease of check-in at expense of data accuracy (this is OK, and worked well)

• Massive dupe prob – solvable. Larger issue of traction has been addressed

• Search provides no name-to-venue disambiguation

• Robots.txt: restricts websearchhttp://aboutfoursquare.com/superusers-mislocated-venues/

- 17 -Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

• Only user names exposed to crawlers

• Massive API presence (of course)

• Does not employ own metadata standards – see API note above

• Robots.txt: heavy restrictions – again, pushing for API use v. crawled content

- 18 -Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

• No ‘place pages’, therefore no crawled metadata

• Tweets from 4sq check-ins are tied to a Twitter place – done via BD rather than API

• Three geo endpoints in API: nearby, details, and rev. geocode

• Place serves now as tweet-centric hub – more certainly coming

- 19 -Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

• Hcard encoding on listings (nice)

• FB Like Button

• No venue resolution on search API

• Literally impersonal: no people parameters in API

• robots.txt contains ‘three laws of robotics’ (geek cred)

- 20 -Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

foursquare:venue=516723

Krohn Conservatory

• Machine tags allow cross-reference into any namespace (incl. OSM)

• Huge API

• But also indexed and discoverable across searchhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisirmo/4560462516/

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Wrap Up: Use of Wire

Razorwire v. Datawire

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

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Datawire

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerplish/250836258/

Connect and Plumb

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Razorwire

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell http://www.flickr.com/photos/mightyboybrian/113445631/

Partition and Control

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Thank You

Tyler Bell | tylerwbell@gmail.com | @twbell

tylerwbell@gmail.com

@twbell

http://radar.oreilly.com/tylerb/