Database Reference
In-Depth Information
"language": "en",
"title": "Olympus Stylus TOUGH-3000 Digital Camera, Pink",
"description": "The STYLUS TOUGH-3000 is loads of fun for the whole family
...
If you're looking speciically for a book, this second API from Google will probably be more
useful than the more general Shopping engine. You can do a search using all the
advanced oper-
ators
from the Topic Search web interface, looking for titles, authors, or ISBNs. You don't have to
authenticate or get an API key to use this, and the results are available as a public Atom-format
RSS feed, so it's unclear what restrictions there are on its use:
curl "http://books.google.com/books/feeds/volumes?q=instrumentality+of+mankind"
If you're dealing with movies or TV shows, this API ofers a lot of information. The formal
terms
of service
are reasonable, and the ten commandments version on the
main page
should be an ex-
ample to API providers everywhere, making clear what Netlix's goals are without clouding them
in legalese—“Delight Customers,” “Handle Content with Care,” and “Respect the Netlix Brand.”
The
rate limits
might be a little tight, at 5,000 per day, but that's per user if you're doing calls
for logged-in Netlix accounts. Unfortunately, almost all of the methods do require three-legged
OAuth authorization, apart from auto-complete. The good news is that you can download the
entire 1.3GB, 130,000+ title database through this OAuth-required link:
http://api.netlix.com/
Having the bulk data available means you can integrate it very lexibly with your own backend.
It still comes with the same restrictions as the API, but these seem well-crafted to cramp innov-
ation as little as possible.
This service lets you query both a large back catalog of music and information on the current
charts using YQL. You're limited to 5,000 queries a day, and the information you get back on
artists isn't very extensive, but it's simple to access, as it doesn't require any authentication:
curl "http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?\
q=select%20*%20from%20music.artist.search%20where%20keyword%3D'Rihanna'&format=json"
{"query":{"count":"4","created":"2011-01-09T16:45:20Z","lang":"en-US","results":{
"Artist":[{"catzillaID":"1927869111","flags":"124547","hotzillaID":"1809845326",
"id":"19712698","name":"Rihanna","rating":"-1","trackCount":"453",
"url":"http://new.music.yahoo.com/rihanna/",
