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ProgrammableWeb

Online reference, blog and news source for the Web as Platform. Because the world's your programmable oyster.

Mashups Get a Hosted Database with NextDB.netToday

Developers looking to add database functionality to their mashups will be interested in a new JavaScript API for real relational database programming from NextDB.net. The NextDB.net hosted database seeks to eliminate the overhead associated with server-side coding, database management and additional hardware installation (see our NextDB.net API Profile).

In essence, NextDB.net hosts virtual databases on scalable clusters, eliminating the need for database maintenance and administration. These databases are accessible via a secure JavaScript API that provides access to various types of database operations through an asynchronous programming model.

The “modular” API weighs in at 35 KB and is framework agnostic, meaning that you can integrate it with existing frameworks such as jQuery and Dojo Toolkit without conflict. Designed and created by Geoff Hendrey and Brent Hamby, two developers from the Bay Area, NextDB.net is curr

Amazon and Pownce Shut Down APIsYesterday

Amazon has announced that they will no longer be supporting the Alexa Web Search API. This web service has been in operation since December 2005 and offered developers access to Alexa’s underlying search engine. Note, this search API is different than the API to Alexa Web Information Service, which provides access to things like the web site traffic metrics Alexa collects (for more on the APIs, see our Alexa Web Search and Alexa Web Information Service profiles).

As noted over at TechCrunch, Michael Arrington posted the full content of the email sent to developers:

Dear Alexa Developer,

The Alexa Web Search service will no longer be available to new customers as of November 26, 2008. Use of the service is lo

New Google Map Utilities Enhance the User ExperienceDecember 3

Take a look at our API directory and you will quickly note that the Google Maps API continues to reign as the most popular API used for mashups. As the API continues to gain momentum, several new utilities have emerged to improve the user experience (or UX as it has come to be known).

First up is GeoStart, a startup from the Netherlands, which has open-sourced two helper utilities to the Google Maps open-source utility library: ProgressBar Control and SnapToRoute. The ProgressBar Control creates a status bar that shows the progress of markers being added and removed from the map.

Yes API Gives You Real-time and Historical Radio PlaylistsDecember 2

Yes.com is a unique community-oriented music site that provides real-time and historical information about songs played on United States terrestrial radio stations. Besides this up-to-the-minute database, Yes has social features like chat rooms for specific radio stations or for a specific artists, like the Yes.com Pink Floyd page showing which radio stations are currently playing or recently played Pink Floyd songs. In addition they also offer an API that developers can build on (our Yes API profile).

The API provides methods to search for radio stations, song logs, the top 100 song chart for a station, and more. Paul Lamere over at Sun recently evaluated the Yes API, and had this to say:

This is a gold mine of data about popular music. Folks interested in automatic generation of playlists can mine song sequences from professionally curated playlists. Music marketeers can learn what music is popular in various geographic locations. Music recommenders can mine data about what songs are being played together on the radio stations.

Yahoo Begins Limited Testing of OpenID Simple RegistrationDecember 1

Yahoo! has announced the rollout of some limited tests for OpenID’s Simple Registration specification. If you’re not familiar with OpenID, it’s an innovative way for handling user authentication that provides a free and easy way to use a single digital identity across the Internet.

Although Yahoo! has supported OpenID for a while, until now ‘relying parties’ (i.e., sites that use Yahoo!’s OpenID service to authenticate a Yahoo! user) were not provided with any profile information associated with a specific user. Now, Yahoo! is testing the OpenID Simple Registration to provide a few relying parties with access to user profile data (the Yahoo! User Profiles API is used in the background).

Plaxo.com and Jyte.com will be the first relying parties that will get access to additional user information via the limited tests. Per the