Hello.

This Thursday, January 13th, 2010, I'll be working from TechHub in London with @mahemoff as part of my resolution to work more closely with developers outside of Google UK HQ. Stop by and say hello between 9:00 am and 3:30 pm if you're in the area!

Just got back from a whirlwind tour of Europe for the Google Developer Days! We hit Munich, Moscow, and Prague, and it was an amazing experience. I gave talks on Chrome Extensions and building great Web Apps (except in Munich, where a local engineer rocked it). The slides are online: Chrome Extensions (needs experimental mode in Chrome dev channel) and Web Apps. I'll post the code on GitHub soon. Met tons of enthusiastic developers working on incredible projects – everything from protein sequencers to automatic app builders. So much innovation happening! (Side note: bring business cards, folks!) Prague was a particular highlight. Check out some photos from my trip!

eBay has introduced a free API access program called the Unified Pricing Scheme. This is a significant change that opens up opportunities for developers, like myself, who were previously hesitant to use the API due to usage fees. This new scheme enables thousands of developers to experiment with the eBay API without cost.

I've always struggled to find good directories of companies offering web services. I finally stumbled upon ProgrammableWeb (http://www.programmableweb.com/apis), which has a pretty good list of major web APIs. However, it also highlights the disappointing scarcity of companies providing decent APIs for developers.

MSN is launching APIs on Tuesday, September 13th, allowing developers to access their search results. More information will be available on the MSN developer site. I plan to explore these APIs and discuss my findings on this blog and on tagger.kinlan.co.uk. I hope they offer innovative features beyond basic search result access, similar to Yahoo's related searches, contextual searches, and term extraction.

I believe retailers need to embrace open APIs to their product catalogs and ordering systems to reach a wider audience. While I agree with Robert Scoble's view on the transformative potential of developer APIs in retail, I'm concerned about the slow pace of change. Costly per-call charges for APIs like eBay's hinder experimentation and development, especially for independent developers like myself. It's also difficult to find retailers who openly offer APIs. Amazon's free access model is a good example of how APIs can drive revenue. Are there any UK retailers offering cool, accessible web services?