In a world of many different APIs, there are some that do get lost in the crowd. Developers are quick to integrate the common ones into their applications. But, there are different systems out there that can allow for innovative developments. Developers can create applications that will surprise and delight customers.
Here are the top nine APIs that more developers should consider using:
Last.Fm API
When thinking about making their application social, many developers do not consider the Last.Fm API. Last.FM is a service that allows for users to send which music tracks they are currently listening to to the cloud. Last.Fm has apps for mobile phones, desktop computers, and is native in Spotify.
It is oft said that music is one of the main ways in which people connect with different social groups and where many people get their identity from. How many different music genres are also associated with groups of people and fashion styles? Goth, Heavy Metal, Punk, Trance, Jazz, Country…. The list goes on.
When developing an application that allows users to interact with each other, you should consider using the Last.Fm API to display what what songs a user is currently listening to. This can help your users connect to each other through common interests, and can help to engage conversations within your application.
Reddit API
Reddit is the most popular network for external content sharing. Twitter and Facebook are about people sharing content they have generated. Reddit is the place where many people go to find links to other people’s work. When you integrate the Reddit API into your application, you allow users to share your content with the wider Internet community. This makes your application spread even further.
Furthermore, you can also allow users to comment on the content they have submitted, as well as seeing other people’s comments. This allows you to also harness the power of Reddit as a support community, reducing the number of queries to the help desk team. If a user has a problem, sometimes they will search on Reddit for users who are having the same or similar problem. users will also expose greater uses for your applications than you have consider.
Zendesk API
One of the most popular ways to deal with customer service inquiries, theZendesk API, allows customers to add tickets for support teams to look at, while also scheduling common customer care tasks.
Instead of using contact forms in your application, when you integrate the Zendesk API into your application, all enquires can automatically go into Zendesk. This can help your customer care team, as well as keep your customers happy by ensuring fast, quick, and insightful responses to any questions that they may have.
Google Analytics API
The Google Analytics API isn’t just for measuring websites any more. Many mobile applications also make use of Google’s excellent data platform to keep track of what users are doing with the program. It’s not just Mobile Applications that can take advantage of Google Analytics. In fact, if you can code it, you can add Google Analytics to it. You can gain constant, valuable insights into exactly what your customers are doing.
Yelp API
If your business has a local presence, or your application aggregates businesses with local presences, you need to consider adding the Yelp API into your application.
Yelp allows customers to add reviews and comments about your business for all Internet users to read. This has become a vital marketing tool for many restaurants. When something is parodied in South Park, it’s time to start taking notice of it if you haven’t already.
Adding the ability for customers to contribute to your Yelp page straight from the contact list can help you to increase your rankings and reviews on the service, making you or your partners more attractive to users.
PayPal API
One of the most popular ways to pay online, when you integrate the YouTube API into your application, not only do you get the ability to play any promotional videos that your company have uploaded, but you allow users to comment, like, and share your videos with other users of the network.
Let’s say you make a killer video explaining exactly how to use your application, or of unique usages for your application. By adding the YouTube API to your application, you allow user to share your application for you, allowing you to dramatically increase the usage of it.
Github API
Almost every developer know exactly what Github is, but many don’t think about incorporating the GitHub API straight into their application. By doing this, there is no more manual insertion of bugs; instead, you can add tracking straight into your app to report bugs straight into your GitHub base. This saves the administration time involved in keeping track of issues and bugs, allowing you to get straight into development and improving the user experience for all.
Flickr API
If you allow any area of graphic customization in your application, you should consider adding the Flickr API into your application. This is because Flickr is one of the largest sources of Creative Common pictures online, and will allow you to present a search to users of beautiful, eye catching pictures they can then use to customize your application in the way they want.
This is also especially useful if you allow users to create a profile within your application. Some users would rather remain anonymous online, and they would be able to use Flickr to find a photograph to represent themselves while still allowing to show a little bit of their personality.
And of course, if you have made a Camera application, or anything based on users sharing images, then Flickr becomes a very important tool in your kit for allowing users to create great content and share it with other users.
How to Integrate Different APIs
Of course, one of the main reasons that developers don’t use all of these APIS is because of the pain of all of the manual integrations that are required. After all, every new service added requires reading extra documentation, and having to worry about what to do hen an API updates and features you are using become sunseted.
With the CloudRail Universal API system though, you can stop worrying about all of this. CloudRail allows you to select which services and devices you want to use, and then gives you your very own custom API with an endpoint that has been created just for you. From there, you can stop worrying about manual integrations, and just code for one singular API. This allows you to add as many services and devices as you want.
And the best thing about CloudRail? It’s completely free; there are no usage quotas, no limits to the number of integrations you can add, nothing. The data doesn’t even pass our services; all of the data translation happens directly in your application, which also means that your data is as secure as you make it.
You can unlock the power of CloudRail for your applications very simply; all it requires is for you to join our developer community with your email address below. We look forward to seeing what you do.
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The post Nine APIs That Developers Should Use More appeared first on CloudRail.