Kin Lane

Local Directory vs. Local Guide

When I started working with the CityGrid Places API I needed a project to help me learning about how to use the API, and wrap my head around whats possible when building local web applications. I built Hyp3rL0cal which is a local web directory, that I wrote in PHP, then created Python and Ruby versions as well.

While I think local directories are still a very valuable and relevant part of the CityGrid network, I do not think they reflect the future of local web applications. So I”m spending time trying to brainstorm what is next, and I want to explore the difference between a local directory and local guide.

In my opinion a local directory is a web application that provides search and browsing mechanisms for users to discover local businesses and places on the web. The concept of a directory is really built around the user navigating the places data, and finding what they are looking for. Which requires the user to be willing to work for the discovery, something that not every user we be able or willing to do.

This is where I think an important evolution of local comes in—from the local directory to local guide. Rather than requiring users to find their own places, we should be guiding them more and making our local web applications more intelligent in helping users discover what they are looking for.

These are just initial thoughts on this, but one example that comes to mind in the travel industry, is Hipmunk hotel search. Hipmunk provides a streamlined way of guiding you through finding a hotel in a city, between specific dates and allows you to effortlessly filter, drag and mouseover your way to finding your room.

Hipmunk is just one example that comes to mind, I’m sure there are a lot more out there. I will keep hunting for better examples of how to help evolve the definition of local from a directory experience to form of discovery that helps guide you through business and places, and share with you developers, so you can use in your local web and mobile apps.

Should the Government Subsidize and Profit from Data Markets

I’ve been having a lot of discussions with folks around the country about how to make money from data. There is a lot of data being pushed out there from federal, state and city governments, as well as from private companies and individuals—without much evidence of revenue.

At this point there seems to be money in acquiring, processing, storing an deriving meaning out of the data, but not much money in actually selling access directly to the data. Through portals like opendata.socrata.com we are seeing more government agencies and cities publish their data, and after talking with the guys from Socrata last week, their focus is on helping more agencies get their data up, not metering or building business models around the data. 

Socrata has some great tools, that let developers customize how they want to access the data, and use in their applications, but there really are no mechanisms that allow data owners to make money from their data. Granted this is public data, so it should be publicly available for anyone to access and use. However there are costs associated with acquiring, processing and making this data available for download and via APIs.

I’ve had discussions with several data evangelist about how government could maximize their efforts around data in the virtual space and even charge for it under certain circumstances, allowing them to generate revenue to cover operational costs as well as fund more data projects.

If you think about it the government does this with public domain in the physical space. Cities and National Parks are free and open spaces for anyone to use, but once you begin looking to use these spaces for commercial use, you are required to apply for permits, and often pay fees and revenue share for access to these spaces and facilities. Why shouldn’t this same thinking be applied to the virtual public domain?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a huge fan of having to pay for accessing public data at first thought, but if the data is still open for me to access, play with and use in a non-commercial setting, and I only start paying once I use for commercial purposes, it starts to make sense. It seems like the government could come up with a data licensing model that allows this type of free, limited usage, then paid commercial usage with some sort of attribution and contribute back when data is cleaned and enhanced.

Obviously this model would require a lot more discussion, but if we could not just fund the operations of government data marketplaces, but also finance the acquisition and generation of new, high quality data—not only would our government be in a better position, I think businesses and the public would reap the benefits as well.

HyperLocal App Idea: Local Laundromat Home Page

I am sitting at the Wash Tub Laundromat in Manhattan Beach, CA doing my laundry tonight. I was working on my Macbook and the owner of the laundromat asked me if I was able to get wifi on my laptop?

I explained that I have a Verizon USB stick to get my Internet connection, since there wasn’t wifi available. He said he had talked to Time Warner Cable and they said they’d install free Internet for him, but it had been months and nothing. I’m assuming they have some sort of public spaces package that routes users to a home page, upon connecting and monetizes the Internet using advertising.

The laundromat owner said he’d just pay for Internet himself. I told him about CityGrid local advertising, and said he could monetize the home page and probably end up paying for the Internet through local advertising.

Seems like a great idea for a local web application, one that helps laundromat, coffee shop and other business owners set up a default home page for their router, and make money from it using CityGrid local places and advertising.

It would be easy to go beyond just ads on a single splash page and build a quality local directory that introduces customers to other products, services and business in the local area.

As I’m traveling, and talking to small business owners about ideas for web and mobile apps, I will keep sharing with developers here, so you can take advantage of these opportunities.

Using Twitter Bootstrap for your Local Web Application

I’m a web application developer. I can efficiently build web applications, but when it comes to the UI, I know what looks good, but I struggle to actually implement a consistent look and feel.

Usually in a weekend I can throw together a pretty complete app, but when I try to make it look good it can take weeks, and often even kills a project before it get going.

This is why I started using Twitter Bootstrap for all my web applications and prototypes. Twitter Bootstrap is a “simple and flexible HTML, CSS, and Javascript for popular user interface components and interactions”.

In the earlier days of Twitter, engineers used almost any library they were familiar with to meet front-end requirements. Inconsistencies among the individual applications made it difficult to scale and maintain them. Bootstrap began as an answer to these challenges and quickly accelerated during Twitter’s first Hackweek. By the end of Hackweek, they had reached a stable version that engineers could use across the company.

With the help and feedback of many engineers, Bootstrap has grown significantly to encompass not only basic styles, but more elegant and durable front-end design patterns. Providing a collection of CSS and HTML conventions, employing the latest browser techniques to deliver typography, forms, buttons, tables, grids, navigation and many of the common elements you need to deliver a sharp looking web application.

I used Twitter Bootstrap to deploy Hyp3rL0cal, my first set of local web app prototypes in PHP, Python and Ruby, built using the CityGrid Places and Advertising API. I’ve rolled up these prototypes, complete with Twitter Bootstrap as Amazon EC2 AMIs, so anyone can quickly deploy a local directory that looks good.

I highly recommend using Twitter Bootstrap in all your projects, it allows you to focus on what you do best, delivering the next generation of local directory or guide web applications.

Mashery Plays API Match Maker with Developer Connect

One of the biggest areas around APIs I think needs attention in 2012 is more tools that focus on developers. There are plenty API services and tools focusing on API owners, but we need to start making sure developers are taken care of.

So its nice to see the Mashery’s new Developer Connect, which matches developers with companies looking for specific API development skills. Mashery partnered with Elance to develop the API skill matchmaking service, powered by Elance’s huge network of professional technical talent.

There are plenty of developers out there who have polished their skills working with specific APIs, either on production, or hobby development projects, and would love to find freelance work, and make some money of their talent.

On the flip-side, there are plenty of companies looking to build web and mobile applications that use one or many APIs, and would prefer to contract with developers who already have experience with those APIs.

Its a win-win situation for developers, API owners and companies looking to build on top of APIs. I think it is also a sign that the API space is really maturing. With platforms like Mashery’s Developer Connect, powered by Elance, developers may now be able to make a good living specializing in API development.

Its a great idea, I wish I had come up with it! Oh wait. I did!! In fall of 2010, and pitched it to Elance, after pitching the idea, I even built a Elance Developer Area prototype, and did a four part series on the potential.

I actually don’t have a problem with this, I thoroughly enjoy my ideas getting used, rather than sitting on the back burner. What did piss me off, is when I was offered the exclusive by Elance after they actually built their version…they sent me a Techcrunch post, saying here is your exclusive. 

Mashery Plays API Match Maker with Developer Connect

One of the biggest areas around APIs I think needs attention in 2012 is more tools that focus on developers. There are plenty API services and tools focusing on API owners, but we need to start making sure developers are taken care of.

So its nice to see the Mashery’s new Developer Connect, which matches developers with companies looking for specific API development skills. Mashery partnered with Elance to develop the API skill matchmaking service, powered by Elance’s huge network of professional technical talent.

There are plenty of developers out there who have polished their skills working with specific APIs, either on production, or hobby development projects, and would love to find freelance work, and make some money of their talent.

On the flip-side, there are plenty of companies looking to build web and mobile applications that use one or many APIs, and would prefer to contract with developers who already have experience with those APIs.

Its a win-win situation for developers, API owners and companies looking to build on top of APIs. I think it is also a sign that the API space is really maturing. With platforms like Mashery’s Developer Connect, powered by Elance, developers may now be able to make a good living specializing in API development.

Its a great idea, I wish I had come up with it! Oh wait. I did!! In fall of 2010, and pitched it to Elance, after pitching the idea, I even built a Elance Developer Area prototype, and did a four part series on the potential.

I actually don’t have a problem with this, I thoroughly enjoy my ideas getting used, rather than sitting on the back burner. What did piss me off, is when I was offered the exclusive by Elance after they actually built their version…they sent me a Techcrunch post, saying here is your exclusive. 

Four Potential Levels of an API Business Ecosystem

I’m working on a framework for the City Grid API that helps define the different types of developers that are using our APIs, helping me understand how to better support them, and ensure their success.

This particular approach is different than segmenting my developers by type of development, like web and mobile or by industry like real estate or medical. I’m focusing on the business side of the API, and identifying what developers need to be successful in the business of the applications they are building on the CityGrid API, and where I should focus CityGrid resources.

I’m breaking down our API developers into four distinct levels:

• Open - Publicly available, self-service use of the API, with general forum and email support via developer area.
• Associate - Motivated app developers who demonstrate their understanding of an API, submit their app for internal approval and take advantage of revenue sharing opportunities around the API.
• Partner - Developers who already have successful businesses or have built businesses around the CityGrid APIs, and may have higher usage needs, and usually contribute some value back to the CityGrid business model and API ecosystem.
• Incubation - Developers who have grown their businesses in significant ways, but need mentoring and investment of additional resources to take their business to the next level.

Anyone can register to use the API and become an open developer, integrating businesses, places and other related content like reviews, offers, images and videos in their web or mobile apps. The API is self-service, allowing anyone to participate.  I can speculate what these developers need, but its up to them to let me know how they are building on the API and what they need to go to the next level.

To rise up to the next level of associate, you need to demonstrate you’ve integrated CityGrid APis into your app, using best practices, while adhering to the CityGrid Terms and Conditions and Usage Requirements. Once approved as an associate you can start making money with your application or site using web, mobile or custom advertising, as well as taking advantage of Place that Pay.

To become a partner your business usually provides some sort of value to CityGrid, and have potentially higher usage needs when it comes to CityGrid APIs. Not every developer has the opportunity to become a partner, but with the right business model, its an option that can be negotiated.

We are all watching as technology incubators like Y Combinator and TechStars mentor and invest in tech startups from Silicon Valley to New York City. CityGrid is integrating this model into its API ecosystem. Companies like UrbanSpoon and BuzzLabs have started out as open developers, rising up the ladder, with hard work and incremental success, until they are in need of a higher level of attention from CityGrid, as well as providing a lot of value to the CitiyGrid network.

Not all companies have the capacity to approach their APIs in the way I’m laying out, but for those looking to build a vibrant ecosystem around their API, where developers can not just play with your API, but truly build businesses and the next generation of startups, you may want to consider how you can define a similar set of levels, that help you identify and meet the business needs of your developers.

Photo Credit - Sustainable Labs

Review of APIs: A Strategy Guide from O’Reilly Books

I had the pleasure of getting an early copy of the APIs: A Strategy Guide, Creating Channels with Application Programming Interfaces, by Daniel Jacobson(@daniel_jacobson), Greg Brail(@gbrail), Dan Woods(@danwoodscito), published by O’Reilly Books.

APIs: A Strategy Guide, provides the essential knowledge needed for planning, implementing and managing an API in this emerging API driven world. Written by Daniel Jacobsen who has managed two of the fastest growing and progressive APIs I know of—Netflix and NPR, and Greg Brail who is probably the one individual who has deployed the most number of APIs in the industry, and not leaving out Dan Woods who’s is responsible for bringing this book together.

The APIs: A Strategy Guide is sound advice for any executive, business, marketing or engineering person looking to deploy an API. But it doesn’t stop there, as an experienced API product manager and evangelist it provides a framework to better look at much of what I already do, while also introducing some new concepts I hadn’t considered.

From a business perspective the book describes the API opportunity perfectly while providing the necessary business, product and value chain understanding to take on an API initiative within any company. As an author who’s written a book on the Business of APis, Jacobsen, Brail and Woods take it even deeper and perfectly describe the business imperative for using APIs in your company.

From a technical guide, you can’t ask for a better approach than Jacobsen and Brail provide. API design is more art than science and they describe a balanced, but deeply technical approach for designing your API, wearing a very pragmatic hat, which is crucial in deploying a successful API.

Beyond technical, the book provides the necessary legal considerations that come up when deploying an API, that could make or break your efforts. There is also concrete operational advice regarding how to approach the day to day operations of your API and ensure that you are able to measure and define the success of your API.

The authors didn’t neglect the most important aspect of any API, its developers. The book provides a key overview of what it will take to attract, engage and build a community of developers around your API. Without developers, your API will go nowhere.

I’ve personally been working with RESTful APIs since their early days and have been studying the business of APis full time for the last year and half exclusively. Reading the APIs: A Strategy Guide, I added two extremely important concepts to my API model:

• APIs Expose Business Assets - APis are channels for exposing your most important business assets—products, services and information.
• API is a Contract - Developers are enticed to use the API because they know they can rely on it. The contract increases confidence, which increases use. The contract also makes the connection between pro-vider and consumer much more efficient since the interfaces are documented, consistent, and predictable.

The authors leave us with the knowledge you will need build a case for an API within your company, plan, implement and manage internal, partner and public APIs. The book ends right where you will be once you successfully launch your API; the beginning. The beginning of a whole new world of innovation, R&D, equipped with a biz dev 2.0 platform that will enable your company to stay competitive in the emerging API economy.

Local, Geo Landscape Roundup - January 29th, 2012

From the Foursquare Blog

• From Starbucks to Sports Authority find your favorite places, even in a new city! - (01/27/2012) - Love Starbucks? On Starbucks foursquare pageyoull see a map with all the locations nearby, so you can pick the closest one to visit. Plus, when youre on aparticular Starbucks venue page, well show you the other closest options. The nearby map is now on hundreds of business pages, with more to come soon. Here are some places to try out! Look for the closest Zipcar locationsand get away for the weekend! Museum lovers, find all of MoMAs locationsin New York (if you’re in New York, zoom out to see them all! ). Local business love! See The Beanerys locationsin Oregon. If your gym has multiple locations, you can find the closest place to work out, even when youre travelling.
• A police constable uses foursquare to check in with his community! #4sqFun - (01/27/2012) - Scott Mills, whos also the Social Media Adviser for Crime Stoppers International, is encouraging officers everywhere to use foursquare to connect with their neighborhoods! Scott checks in when hes giving community talks, to let people know when and where hes on patrol, or to keep them posted on breaking crime scenes. People love to comment on Scotts check-ins, come say hi when hes nearby, and evenoust him as the Mayorof the police station headquarters! See one of his awesome presentations here.
• Candidates and students check in to the Presidential Debate at USF! #CampusHighlight - (01/25/2012) - University of South Floridahosted NBCs Republican Presidential Candidates Debate. Students, visitors, and even Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney checked in on foursquare, with the first hundred people winning a free shirt! Want to keep up with the primaries? You can follow Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and The White Houseon foursquare! If you’re interested in promoting your campus event on foursquare (for free! ), emailcampus@foursquare. com.
• Qu guay! Madrids city badge is here! - (01/25/2012) - Follow the Madrileo listat foursquare. com/4sqcities and check in to five places on it to unlock the badge. Eat a churro for us!
• Tell us why your hometown deserves a foursquare badge! #visitUS - (01/24/2012) - Tuscaloosa! ) As part of President Obama’s announcement to boost tourism in the U. S. , the White Housecalled on folks around the country to share what makes their city or town a great place to visit. Well, we want to know too! Inspired by the #visitUS initiative, were putting out a call for foursquare lists with all the best spots in your city. We’ll pick the three most amazing ones and creating foursquare city badges for them! How to make a list for your town! 1. Create a list at foursquare. com/lists, and make sure it has your town and the #visitUS hashtag in the name. 2. Add 20-30 of your towns best places. Include a variety of spots, from restaurants and bars, to parks, monuments, and local businesses.
• Hey LA, now its your turn to save $5 on every Restaurant Week meal! - (01/23/2012) - New York Restaurant Week partnershipwith American Express, saving Cardmembers $5 on every lunch and dinner they have at over 300 New York eateries. Today, we’re excited to extend the same deal to hungry explorers in Los Angeles: Spend $21 hundreds of restaurants participating in dineLA’s Restaurant Week, and you’ll get a $5 credit back on your American Express statement. Redeeming your free money is just as easy as with past American Express specials:Check in at a Restaurant Week restaurant. Go to the Special screen and tap the Load to Card button (youll also be able to sync your card if you havent yet).

From the Facebook Blog

• iOS and Android: Single Sign-On Best Practices - (01/26/2012) - Over a year ago, we introduced Single Sign-On (SSO) for Android and iOS. Today, more than 350 million active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices. Users logged into the Facebook for iOS or Facebook for Android app can use the Login with Facebook button and, in one-click through a permissions dialog, login to your app. This saves users from typing in an e-mail address and password for apps that require registered users. Since the launch of SSO, developers implementing it in their apps have enjoyed increased user registrations and access to the Graph API to build in-app social experiences.
• Platform Updates: Operation Developer Love - (01/25/2012) - This week we announced how to implement flashHideCallback to support “wmode=window”. We are also announcing the following changes:Getting SubscribedTo and Subscribers via Graph API We are now providing the ability of reading a user’s subscribers and subscribees list via the Graph API. To access this information, your app is required to have the user_subscriptions permission for the user, and friends_subscriptions permission for their friends’ info. Refer to the documentation for SubscribedTo and Subscribers for more details. To access a user’s subscribers list, issue an HTTP GET request to the subscribers connection like the following:https://graph. facebook. com/USER_ID/subscribers? access_token=.
• How-To: Implementing hideFlashCallback to support “wmode=window” - (01/23/2012) - One of the Pro-Tips we mentioned late last year in our Games Tutorial to Developers creating Flash based Apps was to use wmode=opaque whenever possible. Setting wmode to any value other than “opaque” or “transparent” prevents any HTML content from being displayed at a higher z index than the Flash object. This results in Dialogs, Notifications and Ticker Flyouts being displayed under the Flash object and creates a pretty poor user experience on Canvas. As a result when Canvas Apps set wmode to “window” or “direct” Facebook automatically hides the Flash object when any Dialogs, Notifications or Ticker Flyouts are opened. To help improve the user experience we have recently introduced a new parameter for FB.

Tweets from Factual

(01/25/2012) @kevinlouie Our apologies, we were experiencing some brief issues with our v2 API yesterday morning. It should be resolved now.
(01/23/2012) Happy to release our official PHP driver. Accessing our 55 million global places is now easier than ever #php http://t.co/NmlWnvhf

From the Factual Blog

• Factual Ruby Driver - (01/25/2012) - Ruby driver for our API. The driver supports Factual’s API features, including Crosswalk, Resolve, and geo location functionality around the Factual Places API. We put a priority on making this driver easy to use, and designed it “The Ruby Way”. It lets you focus on building your Factual queries and using the results in Ruby. It handles details like OAuth and url encoding, so you don’t have to. The driver and its associated gems are hosted at Rubygems. org. Install the driver as a gem in your project as follows:$ gem install factual-api Once you have the driver installed in your Ruby project, here’s how you create an authenticated handle to Factual:require ‘factual’factual = Factual.
• Startup Weekend San Jose Developer Contest - (01/25/2012) - We’re proud to announce that we are sponsoring this year’s Startup Weekend San Jose. At Factual, we’re big fans of Startup Weekend and their mission toinspire, educate, and empower individuals, teams and communities. We also love empowering developers to do amazing things with data faster and easier than ever before. To help one lucky team achieve their startup dreams, we will be awarding Free Accelerated Access to the Factual API for one year, plus $500 in Amazon Gift Cards to the Startup Weekend San Jose team that makes best use of the Factual API. What: Startup Weekend San Jose When:January 27 – 29, 2012 Where:2903 Bunker Hill Ln. , Santa Clara, CA, 95054 Details:http://sanjose.
• Factual PHP Driver - (01/23/2012) - We are pleased to report the availability of the official PHP driver for the Factual API. This driver wraps our Read, Crosswalk, Resolve, and Schema APIs, providing five-line access to our 55 million global places and other structured data. ExamplesGetting Started: First, get an API key from Factual. Add your oauth key and secret to the constructor:require_once(‘Factual.

From the InfoChimps Blog

• Fixies and Hipsters are Correlated? - (01/27/2012) - Depending on who you are, the sight of a gorgeously simple yet eclectic fixed gear bicycle may make your mouth water or may fill you with ire. Perhaps if you feel the former, you are the current owner of several pairs of skinny jeans, a pearl snap vintage shirt and ironic glasses. In other words, you are a hipster. According to the folks on Quora, fixed gear bicycles (or fixies) are considered to be a strong indicator of hipsterness. The folks at Priceonomics blog, as part of their effort to build a comprehensive bicycle pricing guide, have measured what kinds of used bicycles people sell and the quantity sold in cities across the US. To find where the hipsters live, they mined their database of 1.
• The Best Pie Chart Ever - (01/26/2012) - Thanks, ilovecharts.
• How long does it take for a cockroach to die? - (01/25/2012) - Earlier this week, YouTube revealed that users are uploading one hour of video every second to the site. It’s quite the amazing milestone, not only speaking to YouTube’s massive success, but also the mind-boggling rate at which we are producing data. Furthermore,it was revealed that the average YouTube visitor spends an average of 15 minutes a day on the site, accounting for a total of 4 billion video views per day. It can be overwhelming for most to understand the sheer size of these numbers, so to help put things into perspective, YouTube has created One Hour Per Second.
• Economic Outlook: Mostly Typical - (01/24/2012) - Using major macroeconomic indicators, Russell Investments has created a dashboard to capture a snapshot of the state of our economy. It’s updated on the 22nd of each month with data from Bloomberg. You can click through the “Historical Details” links to read more about each indicator and its see its changes over time. Check out the legend below for complete details on how to read the chart. So, what does this dashboard tell us about the current state of our economy? For starters, we are growing at a modest 1. 8%. As youcan see from the chart, most indicators are well within “typical” range and even mortgagedelinquenciesand corporate debt are slowly coming down.

Tweets from InfoChimps

(01/27/2012) The Best Pie Chart Ever http://t.co/YDjiT0k9
(01/26/2012) @denzil_correa Which API are you using? We can have the engineers take a look ASAP.
(01/25/2012) @jonalmond2 No, we’re not planning a move anytime soon and for future reference, Twitter cold calling is lame. :)
(01/24/2012) @carterrabasa Check out our Foursquare Places API… http://t.co/RGDogpm1
(01/23/2012) 4 Ways Small Businesses Can Build a Great Culture : Managing :: American Express OPEN Forum http://t.co/G77CQ6Sk via @OpenForum
(01/26/2012) One Sure-fire Way to Be a Better Leader : Lifestyle :: American Express OPEN Forum http://t.co/AgvEAQtE via @OpenForum
(01/25/2012) Turning Customers Into Fans and Followers : Marketing :: American Express OPEN Forum http://t.co/HJBWLi3m via @OpenForum
(01/25/2012) #alamw12 - Big THANKS to all our friends we saw in Dallas
(01/24/2012) 11 Vital Mobile Apps for Entrepreneurs http://t.co/sTm8DABT via @mashable
(01/24/2012) Reduce Customer Service Expenses Using Twitter and Facebook : Managing :: American Express OPEN Forum http://t.co/UaBCiHNN via @OpenForum
(01/23/2012) Starting today, we will be adding @TheDailyTrigger tweets to our feed. For infomation about iSell check out this link http://t.co/olN5UKNr
(01/23/2012) #alamw12 #referenceusa/Booth1855 sponsors the ALTAFF gala Authors Tea, Monday, January 23rd http://bit.ly/A9iQJ6;
(01/23/2012) Thinking about switching #email platforms? Some key criteria to think about before you do: http://t.co/RstNFHGo via @MediaPost
(01/23/2012) Loci 2011: Gib Olander http://t.co/mP9ytx6b via @mblumenthal
(01/25/2012) HyperPublic Blog

Helping Voters Register with the Cost of Freedom Project