About 2,353 APIs were added to ProgrammableWeb’s directory in 2013.
With so many great APIs, we decided to create a list of the 35 best APIs of 2013. This is includes the large, popular APIs from companies like Facebook and Amazon as well as some relative newcomers like Zapier and Moz.
We looked for the most popular and useful APIs we could find to compile this list.
The best social media APIs of 2013 are made up of mostly the usual suspects. SM APIs are perfect for mashups since they contain a wealth of information on individuals.
The largest social network with the most information. Its APIs allow you to interact with Facebook chat, feeds and more. The Facebook Graph API enables apps to read and write data on Facebook. Businesses use the public feed and keyword insights APIs to collect real time information on what people are posting.
Offers the most real-time information updates of all the social media networks. It offers partial access to its API and offers numerous developer tools for creating apps that can interact with Twitter’s functions.
Millions of business people interact and share contact information. With the LinkedIn API, you’ll have access to massive amounts of data and tools that you can integrate into an app or website.
A free app for mobile devices that connects people with places by allowing users to register their location and then providing them with recommendations on restaurant, entertainment and other places of interest to them based on their individual preferences and those of people with similar tastes. Use the API to create apps that interact with Foursquare or access their database.
The visual social network that’s big brands have been waiting for. Pinterest has recently released APIs for pinned content and domains supplying the pins.
Not a social network itself, but a valuable source of social network data. Gnip provides API access to data from the top social networks including Twitter, tumblr, Disqus, WordPress, bitly, reddit and many others.
Communications services are valuable tools for optimizing your business, and by utilizing their APIs you can increase your efficiency even more.
Simplify the process of creating forms by automatically building the database, backend and scripts. It offers APIs that allow you to bypass the Wufoo website to retrieve and directly submit your data.
One of the most popular APIs, Twilio lets you build voice, VOIP and SMS enabled apps with their API.
Sell tickets through Eventbrite within other apps, as well as access Eventbrite’s data, use its tools and create and update events, among other things. Some developers have been using the API to create apps that allow event-goers to interact with each other in real time at events and to help inform people of events that they would like, but might not know about.
Sync your database & integrate your apps with MailChimp’s service to use its tools to manage contacts and track results.
Build custom plugins for WordPress to optimize your website.
Access Google Contacts without a password. In the past, if a 3rd party wanted to import your contacts, you had to give them your login information directly, but with this API, they can redirect you to a Google login page, where you can sign in securely.
Olark is one of the most popular website chat services around. The Olark API gives you the ability to edit the chat box, visitor details, etc.
The Zendesk API can help you write a plugin or hook an app into the help desk system. For example, Zen SMS sends a text message notification to customers when you close a ticket.
Media and storage sites are handy tools and full of information.
Search for, view and display photos from Flickr and upload photos and videos.
Enables your mobile app to store and sync files with Dropbox, while its Datastore API does the same for structured data, such as contacts. The Core API allows your app to read and write files to Dropbox.
Access data stored on the cloud from any device or application that can connect to the internet. The Google Drive SDK contains a batch of APIs that allow apps to interact with Drive and integrate some of its tools.
Develop modules, applications and plugins for uploading, downloading and sharing files from the cloud storage accounts.
Bring YouTube to your website, app or device using any of its many APIs. With the Data API, you can integrate your program with YouTube perform operations, such as searching for videos, seeing related content and more.
Easily integrate SoundCloud’s audio sharing and recording functions using their API and SDK.
The New York Times has a wealth of information and numerous APIs to integrate into your app or website. Get information for everything from bestselling books to real estate news and movie reviews.
View The New York Times’ APIs
Integrating APIs such as Paypal with your website, you can easily enable customers to pay directly through your website without the hassle of developing your own system.
The Stripe API allows developers to access its utilities to send invoices, accept payments, manage subscription billing and more.
PayPal offers a number of APIs that bring its functionality to your website or app. People use the API, so that people can make payments through PayPal directly on their website rather than redirecting them to the PayPal website.
FreshBooks offers online invoicing and time-tracking services that can be integrated with a desktop or web app using their API. One developer has created an app that uses Twilio to call customers and FreshBooks to track unpaid invoices and communications.
Having the right Data is integral for any business to thrive and make the right decisions. These APIs give you data to build on.
The Salesforce API enables you to access the site’s information and implement functionality. For instance example, the AirSpeed plugin integrates the Salesforce API so that you can easily copy email, contacts and appointments from Google to Salesforce.
We couldn’t make this list without including our own APIs. Pipl offers APIs to build information (social profiles, images, professional info, demographics, etc.) about people into your app as well as utilities for working with names & profile images.
The Google Geocoding API is essential for any service that wants to utilize GoogleMaps functionality and data. It also offers reverse geocoding, which turns geographic coordinates into addresses.
View the Google Geocoding API
Integrate Social Mention’s handy social media monitoring tools with your app to search for content and access important trend data from Facebook, Twitter, Google and other social media sites.
Nike+ APIs consist of several APIs that connect to data from the popular Nike FuelBand and Nike+ Running. A must for any sports activity based app.
Moz is the big brand of SEO and their Mozscape API gives you access to powerful metrics for any inbound marketing or SEO tool.
The Zapier app integrates applications together, and its Zapier Status API lets developers get updates from all over about the status of other APIs.
The feedly Cloud API offers developers an easy way to add the wealth of information from blogs and RSS feeds feedly offers to their new or existing apps. According to feedly, the API is simple enough that a single developer can build a great app in less than a week.
For businesses that use Amazon Web Services, AWS APIs can be a great tool for interacting with the cloud computing platform. The Amazon S3 API can allow you to download data stored in the cloud or use it with other AWS services.
Project management tools are a boon to any business that requires order and efficiency. They simplify communication between employees and do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to organization.
Use the Asana API to integrate the platform’s task managing and sharing capabilities with your existing app or to create a new one.
With the Trello API, you can use programmatic access to your Trello data to manage and evaluate projects even better. For instance, BoardTrail uses the Trello API to create a tool that let’s you track the amount of time you spend on a project without a 3rd party timer app.
So this is how we ranked the best APIs of 2013. We’d be happy to hear about any we missed or your predictions for 2014.