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Some APIs In Your World

There are thousands of public APIs out there to discovery, but for this talk we are going to focus on less than 20 of the most commonly used platforms. I curated a list of APIs that I felt should be present, and would potentially be relevant to anyone operating at a public or private higher educational institution.

Each company included in this workshop is profiled below, with details about its operations, each of the APIs it offers, some actions you can take (even as non-developer). While the page is fairly busy, there is a lot of information present, and should keep you busy clicking on links to learn more.


Slack
Slack is a team communication application providing services such as real-time messaging, archiving, and to search for modern teams. It offers one-on-one messaging, private groups, persistent chat rooms, and direct messaging as well as group chats organized by topic. All content inside Slack is searchable from one search box and it integrates with a number of third-party services, including Google Docs, Dropbox, Heroku, Crashlytics, GitHub, and Zendesk.

APIs:

Slack Authentication API
Slack Channels API
Slack Chat API
Slack Do Not Disturb API
Slack Emoji API
Slack Files API
Slack Groups API
Slack Instant Message API
Slack Multiparty Direct Messages API
Slack OAuth API
Slack Pins API
Slack Reactions API
Slack Real Time Messaging API
Slack Search API
Slack Stars API
Slack Team API
Slack Testing API
Slack User Groups API
Slack Users API

Actions:


PayPal
PayPal is an online payments and money transfer service that allows you to send money via email, phone, text message or Skype. They offer products to both individuals and businesses alike, including online vendors, auction sites and corporate users. PayPal connects effortlessly to bank accounts and credit cards.

APIs:

PayPal Adaptive Accounts
PayPal Adaptive Payments
PayPal Invoicing
Paypal Payments
PayPal Permissions

Actions:


Instructure Canvas
Instructure is a technology company that is focused on improving education. Founded in 2008 by two Computer Science graduate students, Instructure built Canvas - the only open source learning management system and the only LMS native to the cloud. Instructure now services over 160 institutions in higher education and K-12. Investors include OpenView Venture Partners and Tomorrow Ventures.

APIs:

Instructure Canvas Accounts API
Instructure Canvas Appointment Groups API
Instructure Canvas Audit API
Instructure Canvas Calendar Events API
Instructure Canvas Conversations API
Instructure Canvas Courses API
Instructure Canvas Global API
Instructure Canvas Groups API
Instructure Canvas Polls API
Instructure Canvas Quiz Submissions API
Instructure Canvas Sections API
Instructure Canvas Users API
Instructure Canvas Utility APIs

Giphy
Giphy is a search engine for GIFs. Animated GIFs have existed for decades, but there was still no good way to browse and discover the best the web had to offer. And the vision for Giphy isn’t really just about finding GIFs. It’s a search engine today but soon you’ll see it grow into a community, a platform with a host of features targeted at gif artists, enthusiasts, bloggers, and anyone generally looking to discover or create that next big meme.

APIs:

Giphy Gif API
Giphy Stickers API

Tinder
Tinder is a location-based dating and social discovery application (using Facebook) that facilitates communication between mutually interested users, allowing matched users to chat.

Spotify
Spotify has created a lightweight software application that allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums with virtually no buffering delay. It was launched in the fall of 2008 and had approximately 10 million users by September 2010. Spotify offers streaming music from major and independent record labels including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal. Users download Spotify and then log onto their service enabling the on-demand streaming of music. Music can be browsed by artist, album, record label, genre or playlist as well as by direct searches.

APIs:

Spotify Album API
Spotify Artist API
Spotify Browse Music API
Spotify Me API
Spotify Metadata
Spotify Search API
Spotify Tracks API
Spotify Users API

Telegram
Telegram is about freedom and openness – our code is open for everyone, as is our API. Today we’re making another step towards openness by launching a Bot API and platform for third-party developers to create bots. Bots are simply Telegram accounts operated by software – not people – and theyll often have AI features. They can do anything – teach, play, search, broadcast, remind, connect, integrate with other services, or even pass commands to the Internet of Things.

Fitbit
Fitbit Inc. is a company headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded and managed by James Park and Eric Friedman, the company is known for its product of the same name, the Fitbit Tracker, a wireless-enabled wearable device that measures data such as the number of steps walked, quality of sleep, and other personal metrics. The average price of the Fitbit is between $60–$130, depending on the model. However, data cannot be downloaded off the fitbit website unless one pays the premium membership price of $49 per year. Intraday data analysis cannot be downloaded at all.

APIs:

Fitbit Activities API
Fitbit Badges API
Fitbit Body API
Fitbit Device API
Fitbit Foods API
Fitbit Friends API
Fitbit Glucose API
Fitbit Heart API
Fitbit Heart Rate API
Fitbit Meals API
Fitbit Profile API
Fitbit Sleep API
Fitbit Subscription API

Twitter
Twitter is a global real-time communications platform with 400 million monthly visitors to twitter.com, more than 200 million monthly active users around the world.

APIs:

Twitter Account API
Twitter Application API
Twitter Blocks API
Twitter Collections API
Twitter Curator API
Twitter Direct Messages API
Twitter Favorites API
Twitter Followers API
Twitter Friends API
Twitter Friendships API
Twitter Geo API
Twitter Help API
Twitter Lists API
Twitter Mutes API
Twitter Saved Searches API
Twitter Search API
Twitter Status API
Twitter Trends API
Twitter Users aPI

Actions:


Dropbox
Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by Dropbox, Inc., that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, and client software. Dropbox allows users to create a special folder on each of their computers, which Dropbox then synchronizes so that it appears to be the same folder (with the same contents) regardless of which computer is used to view it. Files placed in this folder also are accessible through a website and mobile phone applications.

APIs:

Dropbox Core API
Dropbox for Business API

Actions:


YouTube
YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small.

APIs:

YouTube Activities API
YouTube Channel API
YouTube Playlist API
YouTube Search API
YouTube Subscription API
YouTube Thumbnail API
YouTube Video API
YouTube Waterkmark API

Actions:


Pinboard
Pinboard.In is a social bookmarking site that offers an easy import/ export in del.icio.us format, Nightly database backups to S3, Cached copies of all bookmarks, a “to read” status for later viewing, private bookmarks and private tags, and simplified bulk editing.

APIs:

Pinboard Posts API
Pinboard Tag API
Pinboard User API

Actions:


Facebook
Facebook is an online social networking service that allows its users to connect with friends and family as well as make new connections. It provides its users with the ability to create a profile, update information, add images, send friend requests, and accept requests from other users. Its features include status update, photo tagging and sharing, and more.

APIs:

Facebook Graph (Achievement Type) API
Facebook Graph (Achievement) API
Facebook Graph (Album) API
Facebook Graph (Application Context) API
Facebook Graph (Application) API
Facebook Graph (Comment) API
Facebook Graph (Conversation) API
Facebook Graph (Domain) API
Facebook Graph (Event) API
Facebook Graph (Friend List) API
Facebook Graph (Friendlist) API
Facebook Graph (Group) API
Facebook Graph (Life Event) API
Facebook Graph (Link) API
Facebook Graph (Mailing Address) API
Facebook Graph (Message) API
Facebook Graph (Milestone) API
Facebook Graph (Notification) API
Facebook Graph (Offer) API
Facebook Graph (Page) API
Facebook Graph (Payment) API
Facebook Graph (Photo) API
Facebook Graph (Place Tag) API
Facebook Graph (Place) API
Facebook Graph (Post) API
Facebook Graph (Profile) API
Facebook Graph (Promotion Info) API
Facebook Graph (Status) API
Facebook Graph (Test User) API
Facebook Graph (Thread) API
Facebook Graph (URL) API
Facebook Graph (User Context) API
Facebook Graph (User) API
Facebook Graph (Video Broadcast) API
Facebook Graph (Video List) API
Facebook Graph (Video) API

Actions:


Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational corporation specializing in Internet-related services and products. These include search, cloud computing, software and online advertising technologies. Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms.

APIs:

Blogger API
Books API
Gmail API

Actions:

Google Calendar API

Actions:

Google Drive API

Actions:

Google Maps
Google Spreadsheets

Actions:

Google Tasks

Actions:

URL Shortener API

Snapchat
Snapchat is the fastest way to share a moment with friends. You control how long your friends can view your message – simply set the timer up to ten seconds and send. Theyll have that long to view your message and then it disappears forever. We’ll let you know if they take a screenshot! Build relationships, collect points, and view your best friends. Snapchat is instantly fun and insanely playful. Show your friends how clever you can be and enjoy the lightness of being!

Instagram
Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them on a variety of social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr. A distinctive feature is that it confines photos to a square shape, similar to Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid images, in contrast to the 4:3 aspect ratio typically used by mobile device cameras. Users can also apply digital filters to their images. The maximum duration for Instagram videos is 15 seconds.

APIs:

Instagram Geographies API
Instagram Locations API
Instagram Media API
Instagram Tags API
Instagram Users API

Actions:


WordPress
WordPress, which is commonly used to refer to all WordPress products, is the most popular and fastest growing publishing platform on the web. WordPress began as a blogging platform but soon evolved to include additional types of websites including news sites, corporate sites (for large brands and small businesses alike), e-commerce sites and everything in between.

APIs:

Wordpress.org Categories API
Wordpress.org Comments API
Wordpress.org Media API
Wordpress.org Pages API
Wordpress.org Post API
Wordpress.org Tags API
Wordpress.org Taxonomies API
Wordpress.org Users API

Actions:


Yik Yak
Yik Yak is a social media smartphone application. It is available for iOS and Android and it allows people pseudo-anonymously to create and view discussion threads within a 5-mile radius (termed Yaks by the application). It is similar to other anonymous sharing apps such as Nearby, but differs from others such as Whisper in that it is intended for sharing primarily with those in proximity to the user, potentially making it more intimate and relevant for people reading the posts. All users have the ability to contribute to the stream by writing, responding, and voting up or voting down (liking or disliking) yaks.

LinkedIn
With over 100 million users representing over 200 countries around the world, LinkedIn is a fast-growing professional networking site that allows members to create business contacts, search for jobs, and find potential clients. Individuals have the ability to create their own professional profile that can be viewed by others in their network, and also view the profiles of their own contacts.

APIs:

LinkedIn Comments API
LinkedIn Companies API
LinkedIn Groups API
LinkedIn Jobs API
LinkedIn People API
LinkedIn Posts API

Actions:



I worked to make sure these APis are profiled, complete with OpenAPI Specs, that will help me better articulate what these platforms do, and wrap in APIs.json, which will then let anyone discover within the toolbox, and quickly put to work in the API design, deployment, or client tool of choice. This toolbox is available as a machine readable, forkable Github repository, than anyone could clone, and make their own changes to the collection.

This is not meant to be a definiive list of APIs that university students will be interested in--it is meant to be one possible list to explore as they are getting to know the world of APIs, and learning about how they impact their lives, as we have a conversation in North Carolina.

If there is an API or tool that should be present here, but isn't, please let me know, as I'd like to continue to make more relevant to my university target audience.