Google opens SOAP interface.

April 11, 2002 3:00 PM

Google opens SOAP interface. I'm not sure what's coolest about this. That Google can be used in all kinds of applications, or that it's free up to 1000 hits a day so the independent developers will get a good crack at it, or that's it the first step of Level 2 of the www arriving in a cascading recombinance of web services and scripting glue.
posted by mattw (13 comments total)

There is already some information available on how to use the Google API with Radio Userland and Frontier on the Userland website, off course. It seems to be very cool, etc etc.
But, not being a net-techie, what is so exciting about this?
posted by roel at 3:19 PM on April 11, 2002

what is so exciting about this?

You can use perl/java/asp.NET or any other language that supports SOAP and use all the information at Google in your own software/web applications.

On the google site it lists a few app's you could make.

I'm sure the marketing people will love it.
posted by futureproof at 3:26 PM on April 11, 2002

My bell is still ringing with "a cascading recombinance of web services and scripting glue".

For some reason that phrase smacked me like a roshi's sandal. I'm now slightly more illuminated. Thanks, mattw.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 4:35 PM on April 11, 2002

This is going to be incredible. Imagine googlebots for your phone, your instant messenger, via email (for blackberry devices). Imagine spellchecking in webapps, related links for anything in someone's blog, and a thousand other apps we haven't even thought of.

Google is taking a huge risk, but I think it's going to pay off many times over for them.
posted by mathowie at 5:07 PM on April 11, 2002

How is this a risk?
posted by holloway at 6:47 PM on April 11, 2002

I sure wish I understood the meaning of this. I have never been able to grok SOAP or XML or any of that related stuff. I mean, how is this different from simply writing a perl script or something to run a Google search from within your program?
posted by aaron at 11:55 PM on April 11, 2002

I mean, how is this different from simply writing a perl script or something to run a Google search from within your program?

I think if you look at one instance of this sort of thing, it probably doesn't look a whole lot different, at least from the user side. The point is that Google is implementing a standardized thoroughly-documented way to programmatically access their outstanding service, which is going to (as mattw suggested) facilitate widespread and rapid development and lead to uses no one has yet imagined.
posted by sudama at 9:15 AM on April 12, 2002

Has anyone gotten this working in php yet? I tried (using SOAPx4) with no success. Then again, I know almost nothing about SOAP. Please let me know if you have any success. Personally, I'm going to add google spellchecking to my weblog.
posted by kcalder at 9:33 AM on April 12, 2002

Did you take a look at this:
Accessing the Google Web API via PHP
posted by roel at 10:11 AM on April 12, 2002

what is so exciting about this?

Because you can do stuff like this [apologies; self-link].
posted by mattw at 10:57 AM on April 12, 2002

What "thousand other apps"? All I'm hearing about are a few variations on a theme, a theme which, stripped of the slashdot punctuation which so often includes wishful exclamation points, would be seriously yawnworthy. I think maybe this is a big deal to people who want it to be a big deal.

I'm one of those people who want it to be a big deal, but...

All I'm seeing is another round of web incrementalism masquerading as breakthrough, during which lotsa developers will attempt to represent oafishly filtered data as truly useful data. For money, of course.

Exciting things happen when a tool arrives which unchains an eagerly anticipated application. Hucksterish things happen when a tool arrives which sets developers to drumming their fingers, trying to think of ways (and reasons) to use it.

Drumming my fingers...
posted by Opus Dark at 10:58 AM on April 12, 2002

I've read that you can use Google's spellchecking function, but does anyone know if the API has hooks into the language translation functions as well?
posted by crunchland at 11:00 AM on April 12, 2002

Tim O'Reilly wrote an interesting article about the potential of web services that sounds like it was somewhat inspired by Google's announcement. Weblogs got an honorable mention. (via rc3)
posted by euphorb at 1:09 PM on April 12, 2002