Alex Schultz: APIs

How do I get a bit.ly API Key

This query had enough volume that it was in the goog typeahead so I thought I’d note it here in case anyone I know needs to know. It’s simple:

1. log in to bit.ly
2. go to this url http://bit.ly/account/your_api_key/

I’ve just been playing around with the bit.ly API since it’s a holiday and I like playing around with code sometimes on the holidays. bit.ly has a simple REST API and you can get the details here: http://code.google.com/p/bitly-api/wiki/ApiDocumentation#REST_API 

It’s very simple. Hope this helps.

Social gaming taking off everywhere

http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2009/11/24/650000000-downloads-via-playstation-store-facebook-connect-goes-live/

Ryan has a good post about how huge playstation is with 650M downloads of data before Facebook connect launches.

http://venturebeat.com/2009/11/23/zynga-crosses-100-million-users-and-expands-beyond-facebook-games/

The above is a note about Zynga flying through 100MM users and if you take a look at the Zynga jobs page you can see how mainstream they are becoming

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/09/playfish-ea

There were of course a lot of articles about the sale of playfish to ea which makes me for one really excited about the idea of getting all those great ea games (e.g. Risk http://hasbro.ea.com/game.action?game=risk) onto my favorite social networks.

http://www.talkxbox.com/article3495.html#

And finally xbox announced 2MM users connecting via Facebook already in just days.

People want to play games with their friends (I for one love farmville and would really like to see Risk on the Facebook platform and would pay to play).

The Kindle will Crush it in the UK

 

As you can see above one thing is completely lacking from the Amazon.co.uk homepage that dominates the US homepage. The Kindle.

The kindle will launch in the UK soon and when I does I believe it will be even more successful than in the US. The big reason why is public transport. Whereas in LA and the Bay area and even to some extent the east coast (although less so) people love to commute by car in the UK everyone uses public transport. For example in London (where 1 in 5 britains live) every train is massively crowded. The whole newspaper format was changed after 100years to make them easy to read on the train. I was reading my Kindle on the train this morning and noticed lots of people staring (at it sadly not me :) ). They were all struggling with newspapers and big books on a fast moving, rocking train. I had one hand on the rail and was controlling the kindle easily with the other hand and had lot’s of books at hand (currently reading the tyranny of email).

Anyway just a general thought but look for kindle sales and associated book sales to go bananas (technical term :) ) when the kindle launches in the uk.