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Google Releases Web APIs
skunkeh writes "Google have released the first beta of their Web APIs package. Used in conjunction with a free license key this SOAP based web service allows developers to execute up to 1000 automated queries a day, but is currently available for non-commercial use only. The download comes with Java and .NET code examples and includes a WSDL description for use with other SOAP supporting languages." There's also a write up about uses on Userland.
Other than being a really cool idea, this is a great tactical move from Google. On the one hand, by restricting the number of queries made to Google, they ensure that their APIs aren't misused/compromised, it also gives companies an initiative to purchase Google products and deploy this API (probably an unrestricted-query API) on their own network. Furthermore, an API such as this will easily muscle out any sniff of a competition from other search engine wannabes. Google has managed to do all this and yet be as compliant
to an Open Source initiative as possible. Remarkable.
DOH. And I hit submit before the good part:
Your program must include your license key with each query you submit to the Google Web APIs service.
Here's a copy of the write up. My machine barely made it to the site :)
Google is just the juice
Thu, Apr 11, 2002; by Dave Winer.
Good afternoon
A very quick piece today, a story, a question, an answer and a pointer.
The story -- 1995. A new release of Netscape. Can't get through to their servers. This thing is exploding. A mind bomb every minute. Wow. I love this. End of story.
The question: Can it happen again?
The answer..
Yes!
This afternoon Google opened a public SOAP 1.1 interface.
Now, from scripts, we can call Google as if it were a script running locally.
What comes back? Data.
What questions should we ask?
That's where the mind bombs will come from.
In the loop
We've been in the loop with Google, privately, for the last few weeks, so we've had a chance to play with ideas and actually have some.
Yesterday, as a tease, I put a Google Box on Weblogs.Com. Every hour it recalcs, showing the top 10 hits on Google for the term weblog. To my surprise, it changes, it's not constant. And it took me to places I didn't know about. The serendipity of queries that run for a long time. That, imho, is where the juice is in the Google API; and probably many or most of the APIs that are sure to follow; because Google is so popular.
Google hits the ball over the net, then we return the volley. Finally, once again, signs of life. Let's hope we learn from the past -- and keep the spark going -- welcoming competition and learning from it instead of snuffing it out. The intoxication of a new idea every day is too good to not want to be there once again.
Maybe the dark ages are over? I hope so.
Google is just the juice
It's happening in real time. As I write this I'm waiting for the embargo to lift. As soon as that happens, we'll start releasing new parts and samples for Radio and Frontier users that connect to Google's SOAP interface, with simple but geekish instructions for getting started.
Later today Google Boxes will start showing up on Radio weblogs, which you can follow through Weblogs.Com. You'll see SOAP developers, on all platforms, getting to work, creating and publishing the glue that turns the Internet, finally, into a fantastic scripting environment. Google is just the juice we need.
Dave Winer
Whilst the potential of a regular Google search is large enough, when you consider the Google search modifiers, the potential becomes staggering. Imagine using the following features:
Does anyone happen to know if you can use the other sections of Google (e.g. news, images etc.)?
Is Google the best company ever or what?!
If they are going to limit you to only 1000 queries, I fail to see the point. It wouldn't be hard at all to write a simple API on your own to, say, a c++ class that spits out the necessary url's [like http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=example]
or the like, dispatch them to google port 80, and then parse the results into easily program readable data sets/results? A third party could write this sort of thing easily enough if there was demand for it. I mean, esentially the google search API isn't going to be offering anything not available in the standard forms, is it? Except their spell checker, I believe. [Which you could use via html too, actually, "Did you mean: ______" ]
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
It's not something you have to go to google for, but it'd be nice
ummm... yeah... that's partly how they do their whole weighting thing to determine hot websites for search criteria.. without that in place, you'd have to search through tons of crap to find what you want.. I regularly use the "I feel lucky" button on google, because their algorithms manage to pull up what i'm looking for first hit..
The 1000 searches a day is very nice....I know I would never need that many (if results were unlimited anyway).
HOWEVER...you only get 10 results per search??
Ummmmm. Ok, check this out.
/. we have an article about Google releasing their SOAP 1.1 API followed immediately by an article from a guy that set up a spambot trap on his web site, and in the margin a poll about giving spammers what they deserve. Putting 2 and 2 and 2 together, I got 4, popped open a google box and started playing.
This morning on
All I did was ask google to search for "mailto" and "@msn.com" and lo and behold, she spit back 111,000 hits - hits that contain what look like legit email addresses IN THE THREE LINE SUMMARIES.
The point is, now that google can be automated, what's to stop spammers from SOAPing their way into Google to do their harvesting? Would there be any point over what they're doing now? It might be cheaper, because you only have to run over the google results not the whole sites and since Google caches pages, you can even grab addresses from the past, somewhat.
IT ALSO DEFEATS SPAMBOT TRAPS.
Doesn't this give spammers whole new avenues to exploit?
Worse, are webmasters going to have to put a halt to Google crawls?
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Notice how Google avoided use of CORBA for these APIs. That speaks volumes in favour of SOAP's robustness over CORBA knowing how these Google dudes are perfectionists.