Octopart Blog - News and Updates

Octopart API

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 UTC

We're happy to announce a new, more powerful version of our search API. With our new API you can access technical data and purchasing information on millions of electronic components. You can also use our API to add parametric filters and perform sophisticated queries such as search drilldowns:

http://octopart.com/api/

Our goal is to give everyone access to Octopart's data and search technology so we are providing our API free of charge. In fact, if you are building a consumer-facing app we offer revenue sharing opportunities. If you want us to help you monetize your product then send us an email.

Our mission is to build tools to help engineers and scientists save the world. But we can't do it alone. We know that there are some amazing developers out there waiting to get their hands on electronic parts data. If you have an idea for an app that will help engineers and scientists to save the world, start hacking today.

Company Tools update

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 UTC

It's only been a few weeks since we launched Company Tools and we've received data on over 100,000 new parts.

To give you a taste of the new part data, we've received full product listings from Ecliptek, including parametric data and datasheets. Now you can search their crystal oscillators by frequency.

We've also received a full set of data from NVE. With the attribute data we received, you can browse their digital isolators by data rate.

Are you a part manufacturer or distributor and want to expose you products to the thousands of design engineers and parts buyers that use Octopart everyday? Just create a free Octopart account and sign up here. Remember, manufacturers can list all their part data for free!

Company Tools is Live

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 UTC

Q: I'm a part manufacturer or distributor. How do I list my parts on Octopart as fast as possible?
A: Company Tools!

Today we're happy to announce that our newest feature, Company Tools, is live. Company Tools allows distributors and manufacturers to upload and monitor their part data via the web.

Signing up for Company Tools is a simple process, just create an Octopart account and fill out the Company Tools signup form. Once we verify your affiliation with your company, you will receive an email that your account is active and you can start uploading data.

Below is a screenshot of the upload page. Just generate a part data file in our feed format and hit upload - we'll take care of the rest.

Uploading data is just the beginning. What other features you would like to see integrated into Company Tools? Advanced analytics? Performance reporting? Ad campaign management? Let us know.

Follow us on Twitter

Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 UTC

For the past few months we've been laser focused on writing code to make our search engine faster, stronger, and more attractive. In that time, Twitter has blown up and taken the world by storm. At first I ignored it, then I laughed at it, then I made arguments for why it would fail. Now I've joined it... and I like it.

For the longest time I dismissed Twitter because I just couldn't see why I would want to spend less time coding and more time thinking about putting my thoughts into 140 characters. Now, I'm glad that I have a fun way to take mental break and take stock of how I'm spending my time. Am I having fun? Am I spending my time wisely? Do I have any interesting insights to share? These are all important questions that Twitter helps me to ask myself.

It's not all about yourself though. These days Sam, Harish and I are all working pretty independently so we don't see each other very often. Small, even trivial, twitter updates help us to feel more connected. Just in the past day, for example, I learned that Sam has taken up running (shocking because I've never seen him without his bicycle) and that Harish is learning how to make chai with ginger (exciting because he introduced me to ginger chai while we were in India).

So... twitter is cool. If you're not on twitter, you should be. And when you get on twitter you should follow us:

Follow Sam (@swurzel)

Follow Harish (@smock)

Follow Andres (@morey_)

Follow Team Octopart (@octopart)

Almost there...

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 00:00:00 UTC

A lot of people have been asking us why things are so quiet at Octopart. There were rumors that Sam was trying out for American Idol and that Harish had moved to India to run a mango lassi stand. There was even a rumor that I had been tapped for Transportation Secretary by the Obama Administration. Well, all of the rumors are false (my application for Transportation Secretary was rejected). Things have been quiet at Octopart because we have been rewriting every single line of code from scratch.

Today we're releasing the new frontend code. Everything will feel familiar but hopefully a bit snappier. Unfortunately, we also had to disable some features (parametric search sliders, partlists, cross-distributor shopping cart) while we rewrite the code to handle them. In the short term we're going to focus on search so keep an eye out for more sophisticated search features soon. Our original goal was to build a great search engine and we know we're not there. Yet....

Please email us with issues and suggestions (contact@octopart.com).

Partlist Rewrite

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 UTC

Over the course of the last few months we've been working hard on rewriting much of the site. This rewrite will allow us to develop features more quickly and robustly. The first round of the rewrite has already allowed us to keep our data as fresh as possible.

We're happy to say that we're very close to releasing the rest of the rewrite, including a complete revamping of the partlist. Unfortunately, in order to keep our development schedule on pace, the initial release of the partlist will remove key features. The details of your partslists will be unavailable (including folders, names, and parts categorized in each partlist); instead, we will give you access to all of the parts across all of your partlists in one global 'saved parts' list. In addition, checkout will be unavailable, as will publishing partlists (we will continue to host existing published partlists). We will maintain a record of all this data and work on allowing access to all of these features as soon as possible.

If you have any concerns about access to your partlist data, please e-mail us and we will work with you to find a solution.

Part Search in Tokyo - Akihabara

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:00:00 UTC

About 10 years ago, I remember a friend of mine showing me a MiniDisc player he bought in Akihabara Electric Town, the electronics hub of Tokyo. At the time, the player surpassed anything available in the United States. So on a recent trip to Tokyo, of course I checked out the area.

I emerged from the Akihabara station to an overwhelming view of futuristic looking buildings and colorful signs.

Poking around in some of the stores I found lots of consumer electronics - cell phones, digital cameras and laptop computers. It seemed like a flashier version of Circuit City.

As I exited one of the stores, I noticed a small, narrow alley off to the side and poked my head in. I expected perhaps a loading dock, or maybe a dumpster filled with cardboard boxes. Instead, tiny booths filled the alley, each one displaying thousands of electronic components.

Transfixed, I entered the alley and checked out the wares of the first booth. Capacitors covered nearly the entire surface area of the booth with the exception of a tiny hole where the proprietor stood watch over his goods.

As I zig-zagged down the alley, bouncing from one booth to the next I saw the same scene repeated over and over though with a different family of components.

I witnessed an effective way to search for parts: the open market method. For some types of searches it may not be the fastest but is certainly the most fun!

Happy Holidays!

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 00:00:00 UTC

Things always get a little quieter at Octopart around the holidays as people take time off on working on gadgets to be with their families. While each of us are spending time with our families, we're also working hard on rewriting the frontend of Octopart from scratch. The rewrite should let us bring you better features at a faster pace. If you have any suggestions for the rewrite, please e-mail us or leave a comment on our Facebook page.

A New Engine

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:00:00 UTC

It's been a long night, but I'm happy to announce that we've rolled out a major upgrade to our back end datastore. And if everything went off just right you will notice... nothing at all.

I realize that announcing a major upgrade with nothing to show for it may seem strange, but I'm going to ask you to trust me on this one. We've hooked up the the new internals to the same Octopart front end while we work out any kinks in the new system. As we bring the system up to full throttle, you can expect to see more up-to-date pricing and availability data, more datasheets, and more part images. And as always, if you run into any problems, please email us at contact@octopart.com.

Octopart Data in Google Results

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:00:00 UTC

When I'm using Google to search for datasheets I often wish that Google could tell that I'm looking for a part and give me the datasheet right away. Well, it looks like my prayers have been answered:

click me!

Clicking on the link above will take you to a Google page where you can subscribe to our data feed. Once you are subscribed, if the part you are searching for is in our feed, it will show up automatically in your search results.

As we get more data, we will add it to the Google feed as well so the service will keep getting better and better. We're also already thinking about other ways we can integrate Octopart data with Google.

If you find the data feed useful and you want to tell your friends about it, click here to send an email.

As always, email us to let us know what you think (contact@octopart.com).

Search API

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:00:00 UTC

Ever wished you could do an Octopart search without having to trek all the way to our website? Feel like sprucing up your own website with electronic parts search? We're happy to announce that you now can using the Octopart Search API. To find out more details, visit the FAQ. Please e-mail us with suggestions and requests.

Parametric Search

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 UTC

For the past year we have been getting emails from users asking us to add parametric search to Octopart. We told you we were working on it and you probably thought we were working on our sun tans. To all of those users thanks for being so patient. We're finally releasing parametric search today!

Have you ever wanted to use Octopart to sort capacitors by their capacitance? Or to look for resistors with a power rating greater than 50W? Well, now you can. Whenever you see a numeric filter just click on it and a slider will pop up to help you set the range. For advanced users, you should try playing around with the url to refine your search even further.

OK, let's not get too excited. We realize that the features we're releasing today aren't perfect. However, we thought some people might find them useful so we wanted to release them as soon as possible. Now we're going to go back to work trying to make parametric search better so please email us with comments and suggestions (contact@octopart.com).

The Reddit Alien uses Octopart

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 UTC

A few weeks ago, Andres, Harish and I had lunch with the guys behind Reddit. Reddit is a social news site with a huge community spread across many topic specific sub-reddits. Users submit interesting links and vote on which links should rise to the top. The links are always changing depending on the vote totals - right now the top story on the technology sub-reddit is on highly efficient inflatable electric cars.

Take a look at the gadgets and technology sub-reddits - there are lots of cool links being posted there all the time. You'll also see this ad for Octopart there once in a while to let redditors know about Octopart. Welcome redditors!

Tour of Brill Electronics

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 UTC

Last week, Andres, Harish and I toured Brill Electronics, an electronic component distributor in Oakland, CA. Our excellent tour guide was Phil Wall who showed us every nook and cranny of Brill, from the warehouse floor, to the sales department upstairs.

I have trouble keeping parts in my workspace in order, but keeping track of tens of thousands of different parts in a giant warehouse is another story altogether. Phil explained the two main ways to organize a warehouse: alphabetically by manufacturer and a scheme where identical parts are binned together and placed in a random shelf location. A big computer database keeps track of where everything lives. Brill is moving towards the random scheme because it makes adding new parts much easier. Rather than trying to squeeze a box in-between two other boxes, you just find some open shelf space, put the box there and tell computer the location. Another advantage is that the computer can tell the "part picker" the shortest path to take as they collect the parts for an order. Just make sure you have a backup copy of the database!

Seeing the inner workings of a distributor's warehouse in action was great for us - it's easy to forget that the parts on Octopart are not just rows in a database. Thanks Phil!

Guest Blog: Romance in the Electronics Age

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 UTC

In 2001 I was an EECS major at Berkeley, and I was trying to put together something cute for my girlfriend. The idea was that I'd click a button on an X10 remote control, and a bunch of candles would light up-it would be dorky, possibly romantic, but mostly just a fun project. The only problem was my focus on the software side of my major rather than on EE, so I was left with about 110 volts AC and only the crudest ideas about how to light something on fire.

I went to the hardware store on University looking for a likely piece of candle-lighting handiness, but came up short. I finally tried to talk to a salesperson about my project, but given the national climate at the time (a few months after September 11th) I had a hard time explaining that (a) I was not a terrorist and (b) I did, in fact, have a girlfriend, despite a slightly skewed idea of what might constitute romance. I left the store with thirty feet of insulated copper wire and a few suspicious looks.

The final product was the wire connected in series with a short segment of steel wool filament (the "resistor") which was wrapped around the wick of the candle (and the whole resistor was dusted liberally with powdered match heads). I think I had about three or four candles in the series.

And the whole thing worked! Mostly. About half the time I could get it to light on cue. About 30% of the time, I'd trip the circuit breaker and my whole apartment would go dark. And the remaining 20% of the time the filament would sort of explode, throwing small threads of molten steel around the room and in one case into the skin of my elbow (the scar is fading).

In the end I decided I couldn't rely on the mechanism to stand on its own, but I wanted to show my girlfriend anyway-I wrapped us both up in a down comforter (fire retardant), put a clear glass punch bowl in front of her face (I had racquetball goggles for myself) and pressed the button-I think one candle lit, and then the rest of the resistors blew in a nice little shower of sparks. My girlfriend removed the bowl from her face, turned to me with a smile and asked, "And how much time did you spend on this?"

On Data

Fri, 02 May 2008 00:00:00 UTC

At the heart of Octopart is our large and growing part database. Since we launched Octopart just over a year ago, our database has grown steadily - we started with part data from 4 distributors - now we have over 60 distributors listing parts with us. The vast majority of those distributors give us daily data feeds. This allows us to keep our database fresh with up-to-date pricing and availability information. A few distributors do not give us live feeds so we periodically aggregate data from their websites. To indicate this we dim out the availability and price information to let you know that it might be out of date. If you'd like to see up-to-date pricing and availability from the dimmed out distributors, please let them know when you place orders.

We're working hard to keep our data fresh. If you find inconsistencies between what we show and what a distributor shows, please let us know.

Free Tickets - Maker Faire Bay Area

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 UTC

Sorry, no more tickets available! Please don't be mad. If you are going to Maker Faire, make sure to stop by our booth and say hi.

More Attribute Filters

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:00:00 UTC

Some of you may have noticed that we rolled out a suite of new attributes this weekend. Now you can do more precise searches for some pretty nifty things, like a ROHS compliant red LED or a snap-in aluminum electrolytic capacitor.

We still have a lot of attributes in the pipeline that we'll be getting out to you in the next few weeks. In the meantime, please report any errors or suggestions you have to us (contact@octopart.com).

Category Search

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:00:00 UTC

We've been working on a new category map and it’s finally ready!

If you are trying to find a part but you don’t know the part number, try browsing instead of searching. Now you can click on the Categories link in the top-left of your window at any time if you want see all the categories. We've also added pictures to most of the categories to make browsing easier. For example, I've always had trouble remembering the different types of coaxial connectors but I can usually pick them out by sight.

To improve our category map, we need your help. If you find any errors, if you have any suggestions for improvements, or if you can suggest better images, please contact us (contact@octopart.com).

One Year Old!!

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:00:00 UTC

Today is Octopart's 1st birthday. We've been working non-stop for one year and things couldn't be better. Here are the traffic stats on our one year anniversary.

We've filtered out all bots so you can see how human traffic dips on the weekends. You can also see a drop around Christmas. There are two big jumps where Paul Graham mentioned us in an essay and where we released search filters. Right now we are getting 110K unique ips per month and our traffic is doubling every three months. It's a great feeling to know that people are finding us useful.

Seriously, thanks to everybody who has been using Octopart and sending us emails (contact@octopart.com). You're awesome!