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Google Releases Web APIs
Posted by
Hemos
on Fri Apr 12, 2002 06:57 AM
from the developing-with-google dept.
from the developing-with-google dept.
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.
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Web API Implementations (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.soapware.org/directory/4/services/googl eApi/implementations [soapware.org]
At the time of posting languages catered for were for AppleScript, Frontier/Radio, Perl, Python and Visual Basic. I've written a basic implementation in PHP which has yet to be added to the list - you can find it here:
http://toys.incutio.com/php/php-google-web-api.htm l [incutio.com]
This is a very cool toy.
Re:Web API Implementations (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Web API Implementations - Ruby missing (Score:2, Informative)
This story refers to (Score:3, Informative)
AppleScript for Google API (Score:2, Informative)
has some Applescript for your use
Re:AppleScript for Google API (Score:4, Informative)
http://radio.weblogs.com/0100012/stories/2002/04/
Parent
Re:AppleScript for Google API? (Score:2)
*shrug*
A great corporate move (Score:5, Insightful)
to an Open Source initiative as possible. Remarkable.
Re:A great corporate move (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:A great corporate move (Score:5, Insightful)
"of course we do. You think we're doing this out of love? But we don't know what they are just yet, and we want to get things right. So go away, and we'll put out a press release as and when we're ready."
Which is fair enough.
Parent
Re:A great corporate move (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder if Google is already providing some sort of paid service to large corporations. On my website on day I actually got a hit coming from a chap at the Redmond campus of Microsoft, and he was searching via http://www.google.com/microsoft [google.com] : BTW, at the time I'm quite sure that that page actually displayed the Microsoft logo as well.
Re:A great corporate move (Score:2)
Re:A great corporate move (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Example of use (Score:5, Informative)
Dave
$ java -cp googleapi.jar com.google.soap.search.GoogleAPIDemo XXmykeyXX search "british empire"
Parameters:
Client key = XXmykeyXX
Directive = search
Args = british empire
Google Search Results:
======================
{
TM = 0.117071
Q = "british empire"
CT = ""
TT = ""
CATs =
{
{SE="", FVN="Top/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Society_a
}
Start Index = 1
End Index = 10
Estimated Total Results Number = 688000
Document Filtering = true
Estimate Correct = false
Rs =
{
[
URL = "http://www.btinternet.com/~britishempire/empire/
Title = "The British Empire"
Snippet = "| Introduction | Articles | Biographies | Timelines
| Discussio
n | Map Room | Armed Forces | Art
Directory Category = {SE="", FVN=""}
Directory Title = ""
Summary = ""
Cached Size = "5k"
Related information present = true
Host Name = ""
],
...
O'Reilly has some good code and stuff (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/1283 [oreillynet.com]
Google Terms of Service (Score:4, Funny)
No Automated Querying
You may not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system without express permission in advance from Google. Note that "sending automated queries" includes, among other things:
- using any software which sends queries to Google to determine how a website or webpage "ranks" on Google for various queries;
- "meta-searching" Google; and
- performing "offline" searches on Google.
Now, how can I use the web API?!Note that this is not in the Google Api TOS [google.com] wich you must agree to before downloading [google.com] the api. But in the Google Terms of Service [google.com] wich you must agree to before creating a Google account needed to use the Google Api.
Still, it's fun and i'll play with it!
Re:Google Terms of Service (Score:5, Funny)
Your Google Account and license key entitle you to 1,000 automated queries per day.
I happen to have a pair of spare glasses lying around, (+2,75 on each eye) - wanna borrow them?
Parent
slashdotted, i think (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Staggering Potential (Score:5, Insightful)
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?!
Re:Staggering Potential (Score:2, Funny)
Nope. Microsoft is.
Re:Staggering Potential (Score:2, Informative)
From the FAQ:
Can Google APIs be used to access Google Groups? Image search? Directory search?
No. The Google Web APIs service can only be used to search Google's main index of 2 billion Web pages.
--
More Advanced Features? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think I speak for most when I ask if you can have your results back in the "interesting" language sets:
why not just use plain http (Score:3, Insightful)
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: ______" ]
Re:why not just use plain http (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:why not just use plain http (Score:2)
What about slashdot? (Score:3, Interesting)
They already do... (Score:3, Interesting)
i've actually used it before with a simple VB app...
email me if you want the code...
Re:They already do... (Score:2)
NNTP tunneling ? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not something you have to go to google for, but it'd be nice
Re:NNTP tunneling ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Companies have become happy blocking ports to restrict no-nos: messaging, newsgroups, etc.
I'm wondering how long it will be until we start seeing firewalls that can filter/block SOAP calls for the very reasons you mention. SOAP just forces network admins to move up from ports and protocals to sniffing HTTP requests to keep people from having too much fun.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
Parent
only 10 results per search?? (Score:2, Insightful)
HOWEVER...you only get 10 results per search??
Question (Score:2, Funny)
Synthesis (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Synthesis (Score:2, Informative)
LOL maybe we should just dismantle the whole internet, as clearly the internet is the channel used by spammers! Oh wait. The internet has many many positive uses. Gee!
</sarcasm>
LOL a 4 for Interesting? Oh come on, this is ignorance, not information.
Horrors! Spammers can use this!
Uh 'scuse me but I can write a 10 line perl script that does the same thing. All I have to do is craft a query to google, and put a bunch of work into parsing out the real content from the HTML that comes back. Kind of a pain, but nothing a few regexp can't handle. This API is nothing new, it's just something handy. I'm seriously thinking I can replace a component of a research project here at our research facility with this. Why reinvent the wheel after all?
Worse, are webmasters going to have to put a halt to Google crawls?
It's called robots.txt. Ever run a web server? All this API does is let you do searches to google. Google is google is always searching. That's what robots.txt is for. You are not going to get crawled by this! This is not a BOT, just a QUERY TOOL.
Google Stock Exchange (Score:2)
Years ago, The Hollywood Stock Exchange [hsx.com] was a somewhat popular game (maybe it still is, but it doesn't really interest me). The general idea being that you could "Buy shares of your favorite actors, movies, and music artists and watch their values rise or fall based on the success of their careers and personal life."
It would be interesting to see a similar game based on the popularity of queries. It's clear from the Google Zeitgeist [google.com] that certain search terms do gain and lose popularity on a regular basis, and for someone tapped in to mainstream culture, it may not be too hard to predict.
I suppose you could do the same thing with the other info there (Browsers, OSs, Current Events, etc.) but I don't think it would be as interesting. Although... Anime searches might be neat.
Anyhow, just an idea I'd love to see someone run with.
-Tommy
Interactive Suck-Rules-O-Meter Now? (Score:2)
they own spell check results? (Score:2)
The Google Rights include rights to the following:......(3) the search results and spell checking you obtain when you use Google Web APIs.
I never thought I'd read the words "Google Rights" in a legal document, but anyway, how can Google own the rights to "spell checking".. what exactly do they own? The words that come back? The association of misspelled words to spelled words? How could you abuse that??
I must say this is incredibly cool though.. however I would much rather see a generic "Search Engine API" that isn't owned by Google, and can be implemented by anyone.
Not needed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not needed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And you thought Microsoft was spying? (Score:4, Insightful)
Your program must include your license key with each query you submit to the Google Web APIs service.
Parent
Re:And you thought Microsoft was spying? (Score:2, Funny)
What I find even more amazing is that you seem to expect this unrestricted acces.
Re:And you thought Microsoft was spying? (Score:2)
Gee, and now Google will log every search from your automated application.
And now you can create your own peer-to-peer google search which eliminates the logging altogether.
Re:And you thought Microsoft was spying? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Google groups may require a Google account.. (Score:2)
Re:Google groups may require a Google account.. (Score:4, Informative)
In the future, your Google account will enable login access to all Google services, including Google Groups posting, Google AdWords, the Google Store, the Google in Your Language program, and more.
(My emphasis)
Notice the difference?
Parent
Re:Pigeonrank anyone? (Score:4, Funny)
public void Pigeon()
is what makes them crap on your shoulder?
Parent
Re:Grammar nits (Score:2)
Same's true if you watch enough Britcoms or other British imports (damn do they make good crime dramas!).
My 2 cents...
GTRacer
- Should be returning to England in a year or so...
Re:Grammar nits (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Grammar nits (Score:2)
Didn't know that. Cool. I stand corrected.
Re:Anyone care to explain... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent