Start with the Google+ API

The Google+ project brings the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. The Google+ platform brings that nuance and richness to all of the web. We started with Google’s own products, added the +1 button for site owners and content publishers, and introduced games from a handful of partners. That’s just the beginning though — we want every one of you who builds applications to be able to include rich sharing, identity, and conversations in your app. Today, we’re taking the next step on that journey by launching the first of the Google+ APIs.

Let’s Go Public

Google+ gives users full control over their information, supporting everything from intimate conversations with family to public showcases and debates. This initial API release is focused on public data only — it lets you read information that people have shared publicly on Google+. For example, if you want to get my profile information, you can use the people.get method by sending the following HTTP request:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/people/108189587050871927619?key=yourAPIKey

which returns the following JSON encoded output (excerpted for brevity):

[php]{
"kind": "plus#person",
"id": "108189587050871927619",
"displayName": "Chris Chabot",
"image": {
"url": "https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-cQNLOQzkGpE/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAEjo/M9_pXL-ra4Q/photo.jpg"
},
"organizations": [
{
"name": "Google+ Developer Relations",
"title": "Developer Advocate & Manager",
"type": "work"
}
]
}[/php]

Similarly, you can get a list of my most recent public posts by using the activities.list method:

 

GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/people/108189587050871927619/activities/public?key=yourAPIKey

Because we’re starting with public data only, you simply need to register your app before making requests. And if you aren’t yet sure which Google+ user is running your app (for example, because they’re installing it for the first time), then you can use the new plus.me OAuth2 scope to ask the user who they are.

After your application has requested this scope, you can use the special “me” identifier rather than the long numeric identifier:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/people/me

On The Shoulders of Giants

We love the way the programmable web has evolved, so we’re using existing standards and best practices wherever we can:

  • Our API methods are RESTful HTTP requests which return JSON responses.
  • Our payload formats use standard syntax (e.g. PoCo for people info, ActivityStrea.ms for activities).
  • We use OAuth 2 for secure trusted access to user data.

In addition, since most of us no longer write raw HTTP requests these days, we provide libraries for your favorite language: Java, GWT, Python, Ruby, PHP, Objective-C, and .NET. These libraries are all open source, so we’d love to have your feedback and help with them.

developers.google.com

You can find more information about the Google+ platform, including today’s new APIs to public data, at developers.google.com/+ on our new Google Developers site. This site will be the place to go for access to documentation, terms and policies, discussions with other developers, tools that make development on the +Platform easier and more fun and, of course, the place where announcements concerning new releases will be made.

Included in our policies are three simple guidelines that we aspire to in our own products, and that we’d like all applications built on the Google+ platform to follow also: put the user first, be transparent, and respect user data. The goal behind these guidelines, as with all of the features and fine print, is to work together to build products that our users will love.

And now …

For all of you developers who have been asking for a Google+ API, this is the start. Experiment with it. Build apps on it. Give us your feedback and ideas. This is just the beginning; the Google+ platform will grow and we value your input as we move Google+ forward.

The iOS Blogger app

We’re excited to announce the new Blogger app for iOS. With the Blogger app, you can write a new blog post and publish it immediately or save it as a draft right from your iOS device. You can also open a blog post you’ve been working on from your computer and continue editing it while you’re on-the-go. Your blog posts are automatically synced across devices, so you’ll always have access to the latest version.

Pictures are worth a thousand words, and the Blogger app makes it easy to add photos either by choosing from the gallery or taking a new photo right within the app. You can also add labels and location to provide more details about the post.

Download the Blogger app today for iOS versions 3.2 and above in the App Store. Although the user interface is only available in English at this time, the app supports blog posts written in all languages. If you’re using an Android-powered device, you can download the Blogger app for Android from the Android Market.

Blogger Buzz blog

3 Crime Maps: Point collation

 

Quick update of the Placemark Clustering project: we’ll be doing user tests using the uk police crime map later this summer (discussed below) comparing it to a chloropleth grid (translation = head map based on grid, I explain further here)
In thinking about this I’ve hunted down some examples and I thought it would be interesting to name check 3.


No Collation: The first map is Oakland Crime Spotting (bottom inset in figure) that is very similar to San Francisco Crime mapping, reviewed here. Unlike the other two maps it attempts no point collation at all, I image the authors would argue that they deal with the problem by providing sophisticated filtering tools to reduce the point density. However, it doesn’t help if the user wants to get an overview picture of crime across the area the map covers.
Traditional Choropleth: Switching to the the UK, the Metropolitan Police (=London for non UK readers) offer a choropleth map based on wards and subwards (top left insert). I regard this as the traditional approach. Notably it doesn’t show actual figures for postcodes, only sub wards – a sub ward is a collection of postcodes. My problem with this is that almost no one knows the boundaries of wards and sub wards so its a strange way to split the city up. (Aside: in my experience, Londoners tend to split London up based on tube stations)
Point Collation: The UK police offer a national map which uses point collation (top right insert). This is the main one we’re planning to test as IMHO it isn’t an effective way to visualise the data (related post). It offers a finer grain of data – you don’t actually see the true location of the crime but it is collated down to the postcode level. In London, a postcode is roughly equal to a single street.