Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from the TRYNT team!

Thirteen TRYNT Mash-ups at ProgrammableWeb

The thing we love most is seeing real people using our APIs and thanks to the folks at ProgrammableWeb you can track TRYNT API usage. At the time of this entry we've got thirteen mash-ups being powered by TRYNT. Let's see if we can get that number up even higher!

Open Stock Photography

Here's another mash-up, Open Stock Photography, that consumes TRYNT web services (via Odin Assemble Betas).

API Innovation and Mashup Networks

There is a bit of very interesting reading at the Programmable Web blog titled API Innovation and Mashup Networks. In this entry you'll find links to some cool visualizations of the API/Mashup Ecosystem done by Bala Iyer and Venkat Venkatraman.

I really need to figure out why ProgrammableWeb is only listing one TRYNT API when we have fifty eight!

About the TRYNT Wiktionary Web Service

The TRYNT Wiktionary Web Service extracts word definitions, synonyms, related words and more from Wiktionary.

Here are a few examples of this web service in action:

• Wiktionary > maunder
• Wiktionary > ramble
• Wiktionary > wander

About the TRYNT Wikiquote Web Service

The TRYNT Wikiquote Web Service extracts attributed, sourced and unsourced quotations from Wikiquote.

Here are a few examples of this web service in action:

• Wikiquote > Dana Carvey
• Wikiquote > Rodney Dangerfield
  
• Wikiquote > Timothy Leary
  

Wiki Web Service Madness Returns

Wikipedia is an amazingly robust resource with numerous side projects covering individual niches. After reviewing a few more we've decided to implement APIs for Wiktionary and Wikiquote.

(Interested in historical Wikipedia Web Service Madness?)

More FreshMash

Since my last post the FreshMash group has released two new mash-ups:

• Match Matcher > Chart your "love" compatibility with various potential "mates."
• Very Delicious > del.icio.us Tag/User Treemaps

If you like what you see, you can watch for new FreshMash releases on their Mashup Portfolio page.

FreshMash LinkLove

LinkLove, from FreshMash, is another new mash-up that takes advantage of free TRYNT APIs. According to the credits LinkLove was "inspired by SearchMapr" which is another mash-up recently mentioned here.

About the TRYNT TV IMDB Web Service

The TRYNT TV IMDB Web Service provides limited access to the television data at IMDB. Since IMDB does not offer an API, this API is made available to bridge the gap.

About the TRYNT Movie Movieweb Web Service

The TRYNT Movie MovieWeb Web Service provides programatic access to a sub-set of MovieWeb data. Similar to IMDB, MovieWeb does not provide an API, this API is made available to bridge the gap. If you plan to use this API please note that the data structure for theatrical release movies is different then videos already on DVD.

Here are some examples of this web service in action:

• MovieWeb > Dazed and Confusd
• MovieWeb > The Prestige
  

About the TRYNT Movie Box Office Mojo Similar Web Service

The TRYNT Movie Box Office Mojo Similar Web Service provides programatic similar movie titles using a sub-set of Box Office Mojo data. Similar to IMDB, Box Office Mojo Similar does not provide an API, this API is made available to bridge the gap.

Here are a few examples of this web service in action:

• Similar to Beerfest
• Similar to The Break-up
  
• Similar to The Prestige

Movie Data Madness

The TRYNT team has been working hard to add lots of fresh movie data oriented web services. Be sure to check them out!

• TRYNT AllMovie Web Service
• TRYNT Box Office Mojo Similar Web Service
• TRYNT Movie Comments Web Service
• TRYNT MovieWeb Web Service
• TRYNT IMDB Web Service ^v2

You can expect fresh blog entries shortly for the two latest additions (Box Office Mojo and MovieWeb).

About the TRYNT Meta Question Suggest Web Service

The TRYNT Meta Question Suggest Web Service generates question suggestions using a variety of methodologies.

Here are some examples of this web service in action:

• Meta Question Suggest > Pirate (Method 1)
• Meta Question Suggest > Pirate (Method 2)

About the TRYNT Meta Ranked Suggest Web Service

The TRYNT Meta Ranked Suggest Web Service generates useful ranked search suggestions using two methods for generating ranked suggestions.

This web service is very similar to the TRYNT Meta Suggest Web Service but offers ranking data to the mix which makes it well matched for tag cloud or treemap displays.

Here are some examples of the web service in action:

• Meta Ranked Suggest > Pirate (Method 1)
• Meta Ranked Suggest > Pirate (Method 2)

Similar to the un-ranked Method 3, ranked Method 2 focuses in on books. Unlike its un-ranked sibling the ranked Method 2 included author name data as well.

More digg coverage

Another TRYNT digg thread has appeared. Help us improve the visibility of our free web services by digging this story.

About the TRYNT Meta Suggest Web Service

The TRYNT Meta Suggest Web Service generates useful search suggestions using a variety of methodologies. This web service currently offers eleven methods for generating suggestions.

Here are some examples of the web service in action:

• Meta Suggest > Pirate (Method 1)
  
• Meta Suggest > Pirate (Method 2)
• Meta Suggest > Pirate (Method 3)*
• Meta Suggest > Pirate (Method 4)
• Meta Suggest > Pirate (Method 5)
• Meta Suggest > Pirate (Method 6)
• Meta Suggest > Pirate (Method 7)
• Meta Suggest > Pirate (Method 8)
• Meta Suggest > Pirate (Method 9)
• Meta Suggest > Pirate (Method 10)
• Meta Suggest > Pirate (Method 11)

With so many method it's going to be very time consuming to cover the nitty-gritty details for this particular web service. We plan to revisit this task in the near future.

In the mean time Method 3 deserves a bit of extra coverage. This method attempts to suggest famous literary works based on your supplied search term.

About the TRYNT Wiki Suggest Web Service

The TRYNT Wiki Suggest Web Service converts Wikipedia data into useful search suggestions. All data provided by this API is supplied by Wikipedia.

Here are some examples of the web service in action:

• Wiki Suggest > Pirate (article method)
• Wiki Suggest > Pirate (category method)
• Wiki Suggest > Pirate (disambiguous method)

It's important to note that the disambiguous method returns ranked data so you'll need to take that into account when developing with this web service.

IMHO the Pirate (category method) is returing some very interesting results. It is returning a list of "notable pirates." (You've got to love Wikipedia!)

About the TRYNT Flickr Suggest Web Service

The TRYNT Flickr Suggest Web Service converts Flickr tag data into useful tag suggestions. All data provided by this API is supplied by Flickr. Remember you'll need to pass two values (comma delimited) to get a response from this web service.

Here are some examples of the web service in action:

• Flickr Suggest > Google, Microsoft and Yahoo
• Flickr Suggest > Apple, Orange and Pineapple
  
• Flickr Suggest > Apple, Dell and Gateway

If you plan to use this web service for anything non-tag based you will probably want to cross check the results using a spell checker of some sort to correct tags like "sanfrancisco" into the corresponding word value of "San Francisco."

The "Suggestion" Web Service List

We recently mentioned our intention of filling the void we percieved existed in "suggestion" web services. At the time of that post we had only one suggestion web service to offer. As the title of this post implies our suggestion web service offering has grown.

The "Suggestion" Web Service List

• TRYNT Flickr Suggest: Generate Flickr based tag suggestions from any set of at least two search words or tags. You can query using up to five tags.
• TRYNT Google Suggest: Generate Google based search suggestions from any single search word or term.
• TRYNT Meta Question Suggest: Generate question suggestions from any single search word or term. This web service offers two unique methods for generating suggestions.
• TRYNT Meta Ranked Suggest: Generate ranked search suggestions from any single search word or term. This web service offers two unique methods for generating suggestions.
• TRYNT Meta Suggest: Generate search suggestions from any single search word or term. This web service offers eleven unique methods for generating suggestions.
  
• TRYNT Wiki Suggest: Generate Wikipedia based search suggestions from any single search word or term. This web service offers three methods for generating suggestions.

If you include the various web service methods as different "ways" of generating suggestions then TRYNT is now offering twenty different ways to generate search, tag and even question suggestions.

More TRYNT powered "mash-ups"

Two new TRYNT powered "mash-up" websites have been identified:

• 9-Interactive: Web to PDF Conversion Tool
• Google PageRank: An AJAX Google PageRank Tool

Do you have an app powered by TRYNT? Let us know!

SearchMapr (beta)

SearchMapr is a nifty new mash-up that is consuming TRYNT Web Services (via Odin Assemble, Betas).

If you like treemaps then you'll probably like SearchMapr.

A major goal of TRYNT is to fill voids in available services ...

We recently needed a related search suggestion function for a "mash-up" we were working on.

After doing a bit of research the only real candidate we found was the Yahoo! Related Suggestion Web Service (which is very useful btw). Having only one option motivated us to create create our Google powered TRYNT Google Suggest Web Service.

So if two are good? Then wouldn't three (or more) be better? We think so. We've got our very best TRYNT geeks hard at work in our labs.

The Unauthorized Google API List

Are you working on a mash-up that involves Google data? Feeling limited by the current library of official web services? Why not give these a shot:

• TRYNT Google Pagerank Web Service
  Extract the current Google Pagerank value for a given web page.
  
  
• TRYNT Google Dance Web Service
  Extract the current Google Dance state through statistical analysis.
  
  
• TRYNT Google Suggest Web Service
  Extract Google Suggestions from a user supplied term.

Do you have an idea for a Google web service that hasn't been launched yet? Let us know .. we're here to help!

About the TRYNT Google Suggest Web Service

The TRYNT Google Suggest Web Service converts Google Suggest data into useful data structures. All data provided by this API is supplied by Google.

You can expect a new TRYNT mash-up based on this API shortly.

About the TRYNT Stock Symbol Lookup Web Service (v2)

The TRYNT Stock Symbol Lookup Web Service provides a convenient way to convert stock symbols into corresponding company names.

We've modified our method of identifying company names and as such the resulting data has changed slightly since v1. The new method requires less queries to external data sources and as such should be slightly faster.

Nifty Service: Badgerfish

After stumbling upon Badgerfish we felt motivated to share. Badgerfish is a lovely XML to JSON converter. If you prefer to consume your web services from JavaScript then Badgerfish may be very useful indeed.

Are you looking for mash-up developers?

The TRYNT team has decided to offer mash-up development services. If you are interested please drop us a line. Because of our limited availability projects will be reviewed on a "first come, first served" basis.

Wikipedia and "Unauthorized" APIs

Do you think our "unauthorized" APIs should be listed under "External Links" in Wikipedia?

We were recently notified by a member of the Odin team that our TRYNT Movie IMDB Web Service was listed and subsequently removed from the Wikipedia > IMDB page. If that was edited out then I doubt we'd qualify for the Wikipedia > All Movie Guide page.

I'm personally a bit surprised because:

• The APIs in question fill existing voids in the service
  
• All TRYNT APIs are made free for public consumption
• TRYNT didn't try to add the APIs but rather a third party did

About the TRYNT Movie AllMovie Web Service

The TRYNT Movie AllMovie Web Service provides programatic access to a sub-set of AllMovie data. Similar to IMDB, AllMovie does not provide an API this API is made available to bridge the gap.

This web service offers two methods. A search by title method and a search by id or url method. Using the two methods provided you can easily extract the relevant movie data.

This web service is similar in concept/function to our TRYNT Movie IMDB Web Service.

You can visualize the differences by comparing the results of the following two queries:

• TRYNT Movie AllMovie Web Service > Dazed and Confused
• TRYNT Movie IMDB Web Service > Dazed and Confused

About the TRYNT Movie IMDB Web Service (v2)

Version 2.0 of the TRYNT Movie IMDB Web Service features multiple export formats (XML, JSON and Serialized-PHP), caching and lots of new data fields including: Actors, Writers, AKA Titles, Certification, User Comments, Goofs, Trivia, Runtime and much more. We've also corrected a language parsing bug. (Thx Peter)

Here is an example of the web service querying "Dazed and Confused."

Please note: The TRYNT Movie IMDB Web Service v1 will remain active.

About the TRYNT Wiki Web Service

The TRYNT Wiki Web Service extracts data from MediaWiki based Wikis. This web service is not a "wikiparse" but rather a data extraction tool. Queries for this web service are two part; a topic search and a subject. If no subject is passed the search value will be used as the subject. If no Wiki URL values are passed this web service defaults to Wikipedia.

Demo links for this web service are available here.

Popular TRYNT Web Services

Are you curious which TRYNT web services are most popular? Here is a current list based on usage (most popular listed first):

• TRYNT Captcha Web Service
  
• TRYNT Stock Symbol Lookup Web Service
• TRYNT Google Pagerank Web Service
• TRYNT Movie Comments Web Service
• TRYNT Movie IMDB Web Service

Hardware upgrades?

Like any business experiencing growth TRYNT is starting to feel growing pains. A hardware upgrade may be just what the doctor ordered.

About the TRYNT Moon Phase Web Service

The TRYNT Moon Phase Web Service calculates moon phases for a user supplied date. If no date is passed the current date is used.

About the TRYNT Typo Web Service

The TRYNT Typo Web Service generates typos from a user supplied string. This web service is based upon a modified version of Web Professor's Typo Generator Class. We've expanded the keyboard mappings and optimized the code for speed over readability.

You can use this web service to generate four types of typos:

• Wrong keystrokes
• Missing or skipped keystrokes
• Transposition of characters
• Double keystrokes

As we mentioned earlier we are moving towards offering all web services in three flavors, as such, this web service is available in XML, JSON and Serialized-PHP.

Attributing TRYNT

Just a brief reminder folks - If you are currently enjoying one of our many free web services then please remember to provide proper attribution. We have three pre-defined attribution styles you can use or get creative with it. (The key item we ask you to include is at least one link back to TRYNT.) Since we're always interested in the unique ways our web services are consumed why not drop us a line.

Ask TRYNT: How do you perform the reverse phone number search?

Q: If you don't mind me asking, how do you perform the reverse phone number
search? This is very neat, I am experimenting with technology that uses
phone numbers for retrieving additional data.

A: Essentially we simulate the function of a reverse phone number search using "web search indexes" as our "telephone number database. To do this we came up with a method of identifying a website from a user supplied telephone number. We subsequently attempt to identify the physical address of the website from the website itself. Finally the resulting physical address is then geo-coded.

In the mash-up, PhoneBackr, the results of your telephone number based query are mapped using Yahoo! Flash Maps. Since we cannot guarantee success 100% of the time using our simulated reverse phone number if a failure does occur we identify the "general" location of your telephone number based query using a database of telephone area codes and prefixes.

Introducing QuickyWiki (beta)

QuickyWiki is a fresh beta mash-up from TRYNT Heavy Technologies. QuickyWiki started life as a "technology demo" for the new TRYNT Wiki Web Services.

So what s QuickyWiki? The goal of QuickyWiki is to blend the depth of Wikipedia (and Wikis in general) with the ease and speed of Cliffs Notes.

Please keep in mind this is all very much still in beta.

Here are a few quick example links:

• QuickyWiki > Animation
• QuickyWiki > Anime
• QuickyWiki > Baby
• QuickyWiki > Baseball

More about Serialized-PHP and JSON

In the last post we briefly mentioned Serialized-PHP and JSON without offering any background links.

If you are interested in learning more about Serialized-PHP we recommend the Yahoo! Using Serialized-PHP article.

If you are interested in learning more about JSON then we recommend both JSON.org and the Yahoo! Using JSON article.

Learning from Yahoo Web Services

It's hard not to love Yahoo APIs and Web Services. With a constantly growing library of web services, code snippets and now even user interface components Yahoo really leads the pack. As we start the process of updated our existing library of TRYNT Web Services (from 1.0 to 2.0) we are taking more then a few cues from Yahoo.

One new feature you can expect to see in near future is support for various output formats. Similar to Yahoo we plan on supporting:

• XML
• JSON
• Serialized-PHP

The format we're most excited about is Serialized-PHP because of the potential benefit it offers for PHP based mash-up developers. Using Serialized-PHP instead of XML can reduce your overhead by removing the need for a XML module. Javascript/AJAX developers reap a similar reward by using JSON instead of XML.

Have we peaked your interest yet? Here are a few real world examples:

• Wikipedia > Odin (XML)
• Wikipedia > Odin (JSON)
• Wikipedia > Odin (Serialized-PHP)

Please note since this is a very beta v2 some changes may occur prior to finalization.

More Wiki Web Service Madness

Sorry for the lack of documentation but the "brave" can use these URLs to jump right into developing:

• Wikipedia Topics Web Service: Identify if a wiki page includes a single or set of topics. Example: Does the California page talk about Beach, Beaches, Urban, Gambling, Government?
  
  
• Wikipedia Disambiguation Web Service (still tentative name): Identify wiki page links.
  Example: Where does Odin disambiguate to? What wiki links are on the California page? Where does California disambiguate to?

My Timelines

I mentioned yesterday a bug that occured in My Timelines after TRYNT migrated its Blogger based blog to Blogger Beta.

I'm happy to report the bug has already been squashed and (as I'm guessing you probably noticed) our My Timelines based timeline is back in action.

A few comments on Wiki Web Service images

First - The images that are being returned are "general" to the wiki page you are querying against and do not take into account the user supplied subject value. This may change in v2 .. we are still unsure on this one.

Second - Wikipedia doesn't like you people abusing their bandwidth so please make sure you localize a copy of any images you may want to use that are identified by this web service.

Third - Enjoy!

Wiki Web Services (continued)

We've got the rough draft I mentioned earlier to a live web service now. While the API documentation page hasn't been added to the TRYNT web site (yet) I wanted to share a sneak peek.

TRYNT Wiki Web Service Demos

• Search: California, Subject: Beach
• Search: California, Subject: Forest
• Search: California, Subject: California

• Search: Nevada, Subject: Casino
  
• Search: Nevada, Subject: Nevada

With the popularity of MediaWiki this just may end up being a very robust data set for TRYNT web services.

Blogger Beta

So we elected to try the new Blogger beta and it seems to be causing a problem with the My Timelines widget we use. I've dropped them an email so hopefully they can resolve it on there side.

Wiki Web Services

I recently mentioned our intention of reworking some of our earlier "beta" web services into live versions. As the team revamped some of our earlier code the idea of replacing "search indexes" with "wiki data" occured. The early rough work looks very promising and we hope to have some new Wikipedia based data web services tommorow or friday - so stay tuned.

About the TRYNT IP Data Web Service

The TRYNT IP Data Web Service provides detailed information including hostname, country, iso, fips, capital, currency and ARIN details for a user supplied IP address. To improve performance and reduce queries on third party services the results of this web service are cached.

Click here to see this web service in action pointed at "209.126.254.167."

About the TRYNT WHOIS Web Service

The TRYNT WHOIS Web Service provides WHOIS services through a REST interface. WHOIS data is parsed into an easy to use XML data structure. The raw WHOIS response is also included in the returned results. To minimize queries data is cached for a week.

Click here to test this web service using the hostname of "trynt.com."

If you are unfamiliar with WHOIS then you may find this wikipedia article on the subject useful.

About the TRYNT Chinese Zodiac Web Service

The TRYNT Chinese Zodiac Web Service calculates the zodiac animal, number and description for birthdates between January 1st, 1901 to January 1st, 2021.

Click here to test this web service using the birthday of a TRYNT team member.

Google AdSense

Because TRYNT offers it's collection of web services free of charge we've been toying with the concept of adding some (hopefully) innocuous Google AdSense/Alternate URL Ads based advertising.

We hope this is not too much of a turn-off. If it is feel free to let us know.

Thirty Eight Web Services

Lots of fresh additions to our collection of web services. Be sure to swing by and check them out. TRYNT Web Services are perfect for you next mash-up.

New API Highlights: Address Standardization (USPS), Astrology Horoscope, Credit Card Validation, Feed Details, Image Color Extract, Image Details, Image Nudity, Image Snapshot, Love Calculator, Movie Comments, Movie IMDB, PDF and Related Feeds.

About the TRYNT Image Snapshot Web Service

The TRYNT Image Snapshot Web Service takes a "snapshot" of a user defined area of an image (jpeg or png). This web service emulates a key feature of Backpack's image management.

About the TRYNT Credit Card Validation Web Service

The TRYNT Credit Card Validation Web Service programmatically identifies and "validates" a variety of credit cards. This web service is based on the Credit Card Validation Solution.

Types of cards handled:

• American Express
• Australian BankCard
• Carte Blanche
• Diners Club
• Discover/Novus
• JCB
• MasterCard
• Visa

Please note: This web service does not communicate with any financial instituitions. Validation is done using Mod 10 / Luhn checksum algorithm.

Click here to test this web service the test card of "4111111111111111."

About the TRYNT Address Standardization Web Service

The TRYNT Address Standardization Web Service is designed to reformat street addresses to conform with USPS standards. This web service is based on the Address Standardization Solution. (Thanks to the development team at TAASC.)

Click here to see an example of this web service correcting "One Main Street Suite 89 south."

Why should you consider using a TRYNT web service in your next project or mash-up?

Why should you consider using one of our (many) free web services in your next web application?

• Save time. Why re-invent the wheel when you can leverage our existing and testing API based services?
• Save money. Why pay to develop features when our web services are available free of charge?
  

Yahoo Hack Day

I must have been under a rock because this happened right under my nose and so very close to home. Next time TRYNT will definitely be making an appearance.