(2002-04-11) f

Google opens a free SOAP API, limited to 100 hits/day per partner. It could be kinda cool to put a list of matches for a page's Wiki Name right on that page. Given its XmlRpc support, I was surprised to discover that Zope doesn't support SOAP yet, though there is an unofficial 3rd-party patch (plus Mark Pilgrim has a Python wrapper, which could probably be adapted). UserLand's tools even handle the daily caching for you.

• Apr14: Dave Winer is providing an XmlRpc gateway to Google. At least for now. Lots of availability-risk, which he notes clearly.

  • since this seems to prove that there was no data complexity requiring the protocol complexity of SOAP over XmlRpc, I wonder why Google didn't do an XmlRpc interface?

  • Dave also has a good essay. When Google arrives on the desktop, it will have the same SOAP interface that the global Google has. All the tools that work with the centralized service will also work on the desktop... As a consistent evangelist of Internet-based scripting, Google's move helps enormously. They got people thinking. If the Internet is anything, it's a collection of minds and wills. If the evidence is there, the minds believe. Web services can make you think, make you want more.

I haven't read the docs yet. I wonder whether the API supports "link" searches? That could be kinda cool. Though I wonder whether that would be better done via WeblogsCom or BlogDex or DayPop? I suppose the joy of Web Services is that you could query multiple sources and combine the results!

Jim Roepcke thinks this will screw up Google's rankings by over-reinforcing the top matches.

The API does support "link" searches, as well as any other type of search syntax that can be entered into google's search box (ie. "related", "site", "intitle", "inurl", etc).