Here are Marks’ six main points:

• Do your research first
• Help forums
• Be able to show code
• Show us that you did your homework
• Make it clear who you’ve contacted
• Don’t use the wrong contact

Marks goes into detail for each point, such as doing your homework:

If you do contact a Googler directly, be able to show that you did these things. You’re likely to get more attention if you can say “I tried this like it says in the docs, but that didn’t work because…” rather than “How do I make a Marker?” Send a link to the post you made in the help forum. That way we can make sure it gets answered and others benefit from the answer. Send us a link to your code, or post it in JSFiddle or something so that we can see your code.

If you think about it, it’s a little bit of a Golden Rule: how would you want to be approached with a technical question? While these Googlers are paid to talk to developers, their time is still finite. By following the points above, you can prove that you find their time as valuable as your own.

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Strangely, Google Trends was unable to provide the above graph due to insufficient data. However, Google Insights happily displays the current interest of each search term. Consistently, developers have been more likely to search for Google Trends API than Google Insights API. Unfortunately, neither exist.

What developers want, they find a way to get. There’s a python library to extract the Google Trends data. Those after a Google Insights API aren’t so lucky. The best I can find is a forum thread with scientists begging for data. One even offered Google $1,000 per year.

Of course, it’s dangerous to hang your hat on something unsupported. For those willing to walk out on a limb, we list 19 unofficial APIs. And the search giant is no stranger to the idea, since it maintains an unofficial, secret weather API.

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Glopho – View more at http://m.glopho.com/ Glopho is an exciting way to be part of the news. Glopho is a social network for news photos and this camera app makes getting involved simple. APIs used include: Flickr. More at our Glopho profile.

Newspaper.li – Information on trending topics: images, videos, tweets, q&a and forum posts. APIs used include: Flickr, YouTube, Omgili, GoogleAjaxSearch. More at our Newspaper.li profile.

Pixurl Social Search – Use pixurl to search your favorite social platforms all from one web page. APIs used include: Flickr, YouTube, Twitter. More at our Pixurl Social Search profile.

Typography Observer – Aggregator and OneStopSearch for typography. Special Interest Observer. APIs used include: Flickr, Zooomr, Zenfolio, YouTube, Vimeo, TwitPic, Smugmug, IssuuSearch, Ipernity, Instagram, Dailymotion. More at our Typography Observer profile.

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The /jobs/apply endpoint, upon a successful request, goes straight into the email of the Parse founders and recruiters. “We got inundated,” Yu said. “There were hundreds of applicants. A stunning amount for one day.”

Among the most interesting Parse applicants: Steve Jobs and Abraham Lincoln.

Yu estimates that half of the applications are legitimate, though he hasn’t looked through everything yet. He and the team–now 11 full-timers–are busy working on the mobile backend-as-a-service offering.

At first, Yu’s co-founders were sour on the idea of applying via API. And for the first several months, the application had little interest. “The original reason we did it is it’s a really easy fizzbuzz test,” Yu said. After the interest and one Hacker News JavaScript solution, Yu’s thinking about improvements. “We do want to make it harder in the future.”

Are companies going to start doing more APIs as applications? With the technical talent pool as precious as it is, it may be a way to get a little interest. “You do anything slightly different, slightly novel and you’ll get a lot of people talking about it,” Yu said.

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The Kickstarter project has half a day to go and a ways before it becomes a reality outside of the prototypes created by project creator Benjamin Redford.

The app, nicknamed “Molly,” delivers candy based upon a specified number of retweets. In addition to the wonderful feeling of being retweeted, Molly also gives a physical treat, as the video (embedded above) shows. Molly’s sibling, Olly, is a similar concept with smells and is another part of the project.

Via Tom Coates

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The graphic was created by one of the players, Kinvey, and shared in GigaOm’s coverage.

We have previously covered backend-as-a-service companies and how they help make developers more efficient.

Via G. Hussain Chinoy

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Facebook Losing Credit With Game Developers

It seems Facebook Credits isn’t helping developers make money like expected:

Facebook made it mandatory for developers to use its payments platform in canvas games in July. That meant developers on the platform had to start handing over a 30 percent revenue share to the company, mirroring a similar split on Apple’s iOS. The hope was that a single, universal currency would make it more frictionless for users to start paying for virtual goods.

“We thought that conversions would go up and be around 15 or 20 percent,” said Kevin Chou, the chief executive of Kabam, a social gaming company that targets a more hardcore demographic, at the Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco. “But it turned out to be around 5 to 10 percent, meaning that we’re taking a 20 percent net tax.”

Via Jean-Luc David

LinkedIn Acquires Inbox-Augmenting Rapportive

AllThingsD describes the service:

Rapportive, which is still available only for Gmail, overlays an email correspondent’s social networking accounts alongside open messages and drafts. So, for instance, you can see a person’s most recent tweet and mention it in your email to them. Or you can realize that you’re not connected on LinkedIn to a person you just had a meeting with, and rectify that.

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7 New APIs

Today we had 7 new APIs added to our API directory including a search capability service, Google Apps time tracking service, viral referral page service, cloud-based data sharing service, blog traffic analytics service, website tracking service and citation reference index. Below is more details on each of these new APIs.

Grab A Great Deal API: Grab A Great Deal API is a service that uncovers the search capabilities of its website. The API is used to gather data from the Grab A Great Deal website and offers developers the flexibility of presenting the information in different configurations. The website is community of users that share deals online. It also offers users the ability to self-promote their own products and services.

The API is an HTTP-based service and supports requests via the HTTP GET method. There are 2 methods of output: JSON and XML. All requests to the API require authentication via the API Key.

NOTE: In order to use the API, you need to be a member of the site.

gTrax API: gTrax is a time tracking system that can assist in project and resource management. It is integrated with Google Apps allowing users to import calendar information to assist in creating time tracking entries, pull resources from their list of Google contacts and export projects, users and reports into Google spreadsheets. The API allows developers to integrate this functionality into their own applications or web sites. It uses RESTful calls and responses are formatted in JSON.

KickoffLabs API: The KickoffLabs viral referral API allows users to build a viral referral (sharing) solution. The API offers developers the ability to customize landing pages as well. Lastly, a developer can make an existing page more viral.

The API consists of two end points. Using these two end points, developers can create a subscription by email address, set their social share id, control if they get the autoresponder email, and return info about previous subscriptions. This API uses HTTP calls and responses are formatted in JSON.

nimbits API: Nimbits is an open source process data historian for Google App Engine. It provides data logging, calculations and M2M communication for sensors and devices such as Arduino. It can be used to record and share data points on the cloud and lets users record their changing numeric, text based, GPS, json or xml values into them. The API lets users access the public server to push and pull their data from. The API also provides access to a chart image service, which can generate PNG format images of user data. The API uses HTTP calls and responses are formatted in JSON or TXT.

Performancing pMetrics API: Performancing is an online resource for bloggers offering tutorials, analysis, tips, metrics, plugins, themes, jobs, monetization tools and a community base to share ideas and build relationships.

Performancing Metrics (pMetrics) offers bloggers analytics with live and historical tracking of their blog’s traffic and usage. Bloggers get detail on every visitor to their web site. The pMetrics Analytics API lets users extract their web site's traffic data into any of several formats, which can then be analyzed, stored or integrated with their own applications. The API uses HTTP calls and responses are formatted in XML, JSON, CSV and PHP.

StatCounter API: StatCounter is a service that lets users monitor actual human activity on their web sites in real-time. This data can then be used to perform analysis on visitor habits and more. The StatCounter API offers developers access to manage their StatCounter accounts and retrieve their stats reports. With the API developers can set up and edit StatCounter projects and also manipulate their stats data. They can also use the data to build their own widgets and apps on top of. The API uses HTTP calls and responses are formatted in XML and JSON.

Thomson Reuters Web of Science API: Web of Science is a cited reference index, which acts as a tool for discovery and the only method of retrieving accurate citation counts. Users can trace a particular research forward in time or backward in time to see how works grow and develop in a focused area of research using the only true cited reference index.

The Web of Science API lets users access the data within the index. Data includes records such as topic, title and author information. The service offers the ability to access formatted, current information for enhancing an institution’s repository, perform automatic, real time querying of multiple records, deliver real-time Web of Science information into multiple institutional applications such as department web pages or institutional repository. The API uses SOAP protocol and responses are formatted in XML. Full documentation is not publicly available.

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Or, is it already here? Since there’s a mobile app, there’s an API.

Update: a commenter points us to Pinterest API documentation, so we now have a Pinterest API profile.

“There is a Pinterest API that serves our iPhone app, but we are working on making the API more reliable and consistent,” Pinterest’s Yashwanth Nelapati wrote in May. The same post expected an API in “2-3 weeks,” but the transition from internal to public API is often more involved than expected. External developers need and deserve much more help than those within Pinterest.

Business Insider writes the API is coming soon to the delight of not just developers, but venture capitalists:

Why are they excited about Pinterest? Because it has developed into a site where people are aggregating products they like. And it’s driving real traffic to retail sites. However, Pinterest hasn’t been able capitalize on that interest.

When the API is available, Adam Ludwin at RRE, says he’s interested in entrepreneurs who can build on top of the platform, who can “close the loop” and figure out a way to monetize the interest around products on Pinterest. He’s interested in startups that will provide tools to facilitate transactions on and through Pinterest.

For those who can’t wait, there’s a PHP wrapper to the existing Pinterest API. There’s a downside to using these unofficial APIs, as developers discovered when Instagram halted early apps.

Pinterest is clearly “private for now” in the parlance of the API iceberg.

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Once inside the company’s platform allows you to view the interior of a building from multiple angles. This would give potential clientele the chance to easily find an establishment and experience what it has to offer from their home computer or web enabled smart phone.

The EveryScape API, which is currently in private beta, allows developers to access and integrate the video-tour capabilities that they provide into other applications and websites. Now, instead of explaining how to get to a restaurant, the website could just show the way. How simple is that?

EveryScape is one of 206 Mapping APIs in our directory.

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Flickr Plugs Its Leaky Boat

With users exporting Flickr photos to SnapJoy, Flickr apparently shut off access to its API:

Snapjoy’s co-founder Michael Dwan tells us that no warning was given to Snapjoy about its access to Flickr’s API being shut down, nor did his company do anything that other sites do with the freely available access to many other developers.

Since the Flickraft site launched, over 250k photos have been imported to Snapjoy via Flickr, showing that there are many people who were pretty happy about the offering of a “life raft” to get their photos off of the Yahoo! owned photo site.

It seems fair to point out that SnapJoy’s own API is not yet public.

Will the Real Google Plus API Please Stand Up?

Since Google’s social network was released there have been unofficial Google Plus APIs. And when the official Google Plus API was released, it was read-only and not as complete as developers wanted.

CMSWire describes the problem and wonders if the real Google Plus API is on its way:

There has been frequent criticism and questions about Google Plus’ lackluster developer access. Google has offered a limited read-only development interface and a 1+ badge since September, but no official mechanisms to build the third-party tools that are common for other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

Via Jeremy Goldman

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15 New APIs

Today we had 15 new APIs added to our API directory including a used motorcycle listings, affiliate marketing network, protein to nucleic acid back-translation service, protein to nucleic acid back-translation service, dna visualization tool, nucleic acid to peptide translation service, coastal conditions information service, coastal mapping information retrieval tool, url shortening and expanding service, philippines deal service, phylogenetic footprinting service, file sharing and ftp service, random alistair young quote generator, video sharing application, advertising management platform, . Below is more details on each of these new APIs.

aRodar API: aRodar is a web site where users can search for or post used motorcycles for sale. There is also a forum for members of the community to interact. The API allows users to publish their ads on the site, on their applications or via the affiliate network. With the API users can look up classified ads, vehicle information and ad status. The API uses SOAP calls with XML responses. The site and documentation are in Spanish.

Digital River oneNetworkDirect API: Digital River's oneNetworkDirect is the affiliate marketing network specializing in software products. It features the largest selection of digital products offered online today, including some of the world's most recognized titles such as McAfee, Big Fish Games, SanDisk, Logitech and many more.

The API gives users access to some of the functionality of their oneNetworkDirect accounts. This includes access to reporting information as well as content visible to a user's network account. Methods include creativeTypes, campaignInfo, creativeInfo, optionalInfo, monthlyStatsInfo, dailyStatsInfo, getCCampaigns and more. The API uses SOAP and responses are in XML.

Public documentation is not available. Unofficial documentation can be viewed at: http://www.cumbrowski.com/CarstenC/affiliatemarketing_webservices_onenetwork.asp

EMBOSS Backtranambig API: The EMBOSS Backtranambig API reads a protein sequence input by the user and then writes the nucleic acid sequence it could have come from. To do so, it uses nucleotide ambiguity codes that represent all possible codons for each amino acid. The API is available in both RESTful and SOAP forms and responses are formatted in XML.

EMBOSS Backtranseq API: The EMBOSS Backtranseq API reads a protein sequence input by the user and then outputs the nucleic acid sequence that is most likely to have produced it. To determine the nucleic acid sequence, the API implements a codon usage table which gives the frequency of use of each codon for each amino acid. It then selects the most frequently occurring codon for each amino acid to be used in the output sequence. The API is available in both RESTful and SOAP forms and responses are formatted in XML.

EMBOSS Sixpack API: The EMBOSS Sixpack API reads a DNA sequence that's been input by the user and then outputs the three forward and (optionally) three reverse frame translations in a visual manner. The API is available in both RESTful and SOAP forms and responses are formatted in XML.

EMBOSS Transeq API: The EMBOSS Transeq API translates nucleic acid sequences into their corresponding peptide sequences. It can translate the three forward and three reverse reading frames found in DNA, and output multiple frame translations at once. The API is available in both RESTful and SOAP forms and responses are formatted in XML.

IOOS SOS API: This API is the CO-OPS Implementation of IOOS (Integrated Ocean Observation System) SOS (Sensor Observation Service). IOOS is an online tool that allows users to access information on oceanic, coastal, and Great Lakes environments collected from sources that can include NOAA and other federal agencies, the IOOS Regional Associations, and potentially other national or international organizations.

With the IOOS SOS API, users can retrieve data on currents, water levels (preliminary, verified, and predicted), meteorology, water conditions, wave harmonics, sensors, and stations via HTTP GET/POST.

nowCOAST LayerInfo API: nowCOAST is a GIS-based online mapping tool that provides access to real-time coastal environmental observations and NOAA forecasts for any region in the coastal United States. nowCOAST's LayerInfo API provides access to additional useful information on mapping layers, including Legends, Timestamps, Icons, and Layer Descriptions. The API uses HTTP calls and responses are formatted in XML, HTML and TXT.

Ow.ly API: Ow.ly is a link shortening and expanding application that allows users to either shrink or expand URLs for web pages, uploaded photos, and uploaded documents.

The Ow.ly API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Ow.ly with other applications and to create new applications. Some example API methods include shortening URLs, expanding URLs, retrieving information about URLs, and accessing statistics of clicks.

Paynoy API: Paynoy is a travel, services, and products deal website for the Philippines. Paynoy users can search for deals on travel, products, and services and receive deal information via email.

The Paynoy API allows developers to access and integrate the deal data and functionality from Paynoy with other applications. The API method allows for returning deal information.

Phylogenetic Footprinting API: "Phylogenetic Footprinting" is an approach for identifying regulatory regions of genes by comparing orthologous non-coding sequences. The Phylogenetic Footprinting API created and managed by Universitätsmedizin Göttingen uses a collection of SOAP-based tools to accomplish the identification process.

ShareFile API: ShareFile is a file sharing application. ShareFile's file sharing and transferring is secure, offers mobile access, file and folder syncing, and has an Outlook plugin.

The ShareFile API allows developers to access and integrate the data and functionality of ShareFile with other applications. Some example API methods include creating and managing files and folders, managing account information, and adding, deleting, and managing users.

SigQuotes API: The SigQuotes API returns .sig quotes posted by Alistair J.R. Young, a British systems software developer. With the API users can retrieve a DataSet containing all of the .sig quotes available, return a list of all the .sig quotes available or retrieve a randomly selected .sig quote from the list. The API uses SOAP protocol and responses are formatted in XML.

Socialcam API: Socialcam is a video sharing application. Socialcam users can share videos with the Socialcam mobile applications. Users can tag videos, like videos, export videos, and share their videos with other Socialcam users.

The Socialcam API allows developers to access the functionality of Socialcam to create new applications. Public documentation is not available; interested developers should email api@socialcam.com for API access.

Trafficspaces API: Trafficspaces is an advertising platform for publishers to sell advertising space and manage their advertising content. The platform allows advertisers to create their own ads within the Trafficspaces platform.

The Trafficspaces API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Trafficspaces with other applications. Some example API methods include managing users, accessing account information, and managing ad content and placements.

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