Google + OAuth + OpenID = Google Friend Connect.

They’ve done it again, the boys over at google has released a full javascript API for their Friend Connect services. Which uses services like OAuth and OpenID to authenticate users on your website, and then provide all of the social networking features they want!

taken from official homepage:
“Google Friend Connect lets site owners instantly awaken and strengthen the community that visits their web site. Friend Connect:

• Makes it easy for every site owner to add Friend Connect to their site regardless of their technical capabilities.
• Uses open standards to let visitors control their own data and freely share it with sites and services as they see fit. Services include OpenID providers like Yahoo, social network providers like Twitter, and update aggregators like Plaxo Pulse.

Friend Connect APIs enable developers to:

• Integrate social flows and data directly within a page’s markup, via the OpenSocial standard specification.
• Integrate existing login systems, registered users, and existing data with new social data and activities.
• Create social gadgets & services that are embeddable within millions of Friend Connect enabled sites.”

The factsheet, code examples, tutorials, and more after the turn!

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Yesterday programmableweb finally made me go signup over at dothegreenthing.com, a website who’s inspirational stories, videos, and simple actions can help anyone live a greener life.

Although I have seen their logo around the net for a little while now, I’ve regretfully never taken the leap into really digging into it. With the announcement of their “Labs” and the API that it provides, green thing officially interests me.

as described at dothegreenthing.com:

“Green Thing is a public service that inspires people to lead a greener life. With the help of brilliant videos and inspiring stories etc. from creative people and community members around the world, Green Thing focuses on seven things you can do – and enjoy doing. Join people from 196 countries doing their green things and making a difference.”

With stories, help, and inspiration around our consumption (gas, heat, electricity, consumer goods, and even food!) – green thing looks to be the homebase for going green, the trendy web 2.0 and now webserviceable way

Lets hit a factsheet (after the turn) about green thing and take this time to credit: The programmableweb.com

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In an indepth preview and announcement by Yahoo, we see a big move in the tiered pay/free API ecosystem. No doubt fueled by the current economic climate and the fight for Yahoo to make a comeback, Yahoo’s BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service) will go paid in Q2 of this year.

Not all is lost, there are open pricing schemes and from what I can see up to 10k requests a day will still be free, so – you can still get your Kiva.org search engine going for free, but if it actually works out, you’re going to need to pay for it.

There is even more good news,
I swear I heard about this earlier this week (very shortly after the Kiva announcement) but I can’t find the post, but anyway… Yahoo will offer SearchMonkey integration into BOSS! This is very cool, and my mind has been flying through ideas since this annoucement. SearchMonkey is basically a service for “enhancing” yahoo search results with additional metadata. Ex. a search for a movie showing showtimes and rottentomatoe links right in the search!

Now that you’ve herd all about news with these API Services from Yahoo lets throw down some factsheets, explanations, api classes, and tutorials to help out some of the non-know’rs after the turn.

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