Overview of 11 Places Data APIs

Since starting as API Evangelist here at CityGrid, I have been asked a couple of times how we stack up against other places APIs. So I went through the 11 other places APIs, gathering info, in an attempt to see what each offered.


CityGrid Places API

Search Overview - Providing a places search that can be searched by longitude/latitude, "where" using cities, neighborhoods, zip codes, metro areas, addresses and intersections. Details for each places is also available.

  • Database Size - 18 Million US Places
  • Store / Cache Data -  No Storage.  Cache up to 15 minutes.
  • Attribution - Include logo and phrase “powered by CityGrid; data from Infogroup ©[YEAR]”
  • Multi-Provider IDs - Yes
  • Meta Data - No
  • Rating / Review - Yes
  • Deals / Offers - Yes
  • Revenue Share - Yes
  • Call Limits - 10M / Month
  • Response Format - XML / JSON
  • Authentication - Key
  • Pricing - Free
  • Check-In - No
  • Write - No
  • Delete - No

Other

  • Places that Pays - A program that monetizes the display of, and interaction with, CityGrid places is called Places that Pay.

URL - http://docs.citygridmedia.com/


Facebook Graph API

Search Overview - Providing the ability to search the Facebook Graph objects with a “type” of place, and longitude/latitude, keyword search and area to find places listed as objects within Facebook.

  • Database Size - Not Found
  • Store / Cache Data - No
  • Attribution - Yes
  • Multi-Provider IDs - No
  • Meta Data - No
  • Rating / Review -Yes
  • Deals / Offers - Yes
  • Revenue Share - No
  • Call Limits - One call per second
  • Response Format - XML / JSON
  • Authentication - OAuth
  • Pricing - FREE
  • Check-In - Yes
  • Write - Yes
  • Delete - No

URL - http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/


Factual

Search Overview - Providing a places search that can be searched by latitude/longitude, and “where” using full text search query string.

  • Database Size - 55 million entities in 47 countries
  • Store / Cache Data - Yes
  • Attribution - Yes
  • Multi-Provider IDs - Yes
  • Meta Data - Yes
  • Rating and Review - No
  • Deals - No
  • Revenue Share - No
  • Call Limits - cross ref = 10,000 per day / crosswalk = 500 per day / read = 10,000 per day  / resolve = 100 per day
  • Response Format - JSON
  • Authentication - Unsigned and signed requests w/ 2-legged OAuth.
  • Pricing - Free
  • Write - Yes
  • Delete - No

Other:

  • Select - What fields to include in the query.
  • Places API - Resolve - Resolve is an entity resolution API that makes partial records complete, matches one entity against another, and assists in de-duping and normalizing datasets.
  • Places API - Crossref - The Crossref API enables you to find the URLs for pages that mention a specific business or point of interest or vice versa.
  • Places API - Restaurants - The U.S. Restaurant table contains Factual's core places attributes in addition to 43 extended attributes on 800,000+ restaurants, bars, and casual eateries including datatypes such as cuisine, ratings, hours of operations, and price.

URL - http://developer.factual.com/


Foursquare Venue API

Search Overview - Providing a places search that can be searched by  hierarchical list of categories, longitude/latitude, “where” using search term, managed by requesting users, over time range, trending and exploration.

  • Database Size - Could Not Find
  • Store / Cache Data - Okay to keep caches of foursquare data as long as they are refreshed at least every 30 days.
  • Attribution -Yes
  • Multi-Provider - Yes
  • Meta Data - Yes
  • Rating and Review - Yes
  • Deals - No
  • Revenue Share - No
  • Call Limits - 5,000 requests per hour
  • Response Format - JSON
  • Authentication - OAuth 2.0 w/ To make a userless request, specify your consumer key's Client ID and Secret instead of an auth token in the request URL.
  • Pricing - Free
  • Write -Yes
  • Delete - No

Other:

  • Actions - You can edit, flag, mark to do, propose edit for venues in Foursquare database.

URL - https://developer.foursquare.com/overview/venues


Fwix

Search Overview - Providing a places search that can be searched by
latitude/longitude, and text search based upon categories, address, city, province, postal code, country, neighborhood and text keyword.

  • Database Size - 23M in US.
  • Store / Cache Data - No storage.  Yes to cache.
  • Attribution - Yes
  • Multi-Provider IDs - No
  • Meta Data - Yes
  • Rating / Review - No
  • Deals / Offers - No
  • Revenue Share - Yes
  • Call Limits - 5,000 calls per unique user per day
  • Response Format - XML / JSON
  • Authentication - Key
  • Pricing - Free
  • Write - Yes
  • Delete - Yes

Other:

  • Geotagger Methods - Returns places geotagged to a given web page.
  • Content Methods - Returns geotagged content in or near a location.

URL - http://fwix.com/developer_tools/api


Google Places API

Search Overview - Providing a places search that can be searched by latitude/longitude, keyword matched against all fields, name of place, type of place restricted by radius.   As well as pulling details for each places.

  • Database Size - Could not find
  • Store / Cache Data -
  • Attribution - "Powered by Google" logo is displayed above or below the data
  • Multi-Provider IDs - No
  • Meta Data - No
  • Rating / Review - Yes
  • Deals / Offers - No
  • Revenue Share - No
  • Call Limits - 1 000 requests per 24 hour period
  • Response Format - XML / JSON
  • Authentication - Key
  • Pricing - Free
  • Check-In - Yes
  • Write - Yes
  • Delete - Yes

URL - http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/places/


InfoChimps

Search Overview - Providing a places search that can be searched by longitude/latitude with radius, address, bounding box or IP address.

  • Database Size - Could not find
  • Store / Cache Data - Yes
  • Attribution - Yes
  • Multi-Provider IDs - No
  • Meta Data -  No
  • Rating and Review - No
  • Deals / Offers - No
  • Revenue Share - No
  • Call Limits - Couldn’t Find
  • Response Format - XML / JSON
  • Authentication - Key
  • Pricing - Free w/ Premium Pricing
  • Check-In - No
  • Write -  Yes
  • Delete - Yes

URL - http://www.infochimps.com/datasets/business-places-by-locationary


Nokia

Search Overview - Providing a JavaScript places search that can be searched by search term, with a detail search for display by JS widget.

  • Database Size - Not Found
  • Store / Cache Data - No
  • Attribution - Yes
  • Multi-Provider IDs - No
  • Meta Data - No
  • Rating / Review - No
  • Deals / Offers - No
  • Revenue Share - No
  • Call Limits - Not Found
  • Response Format - JSON
  • Authentication - None
  • Pricing - Free
  • Check-In - No
  • Write - No
  • Delete - No

URL - http://api.maps.nokia.com/places/index.html


Yahoo GeoPlanet

Search Overview - Providing a places search that can be searched by type, county, state, country, oceans, seas, continents, hierarchy and full text search.  Also returns places detail by ID.

  • Database Size - Could not find
  • Store / Cache Data - No
  • Attribution - Must contain the copyright notice "Copyright © Yahoo! Inc. 2008, All Rights Reserved"
  • Multi-Provider IDs -No
  • Meta Data - Yes
  • Rating / Review - No
  • Deals / Offers - No
  • Revenue Share - No
  • Call Limits - “Reasonable Request Volume”
  • Response Format - JSON / XML
  • Authentication - Key
  • Pricing - Free
  • Write - Yes
  • Delete - Yes

URL - http://developer.yahoo.com/geo/geoplanet/


Yelp API

Search Overview - You can search location using geo bounding box, longitude and latitude, neighborhood, address or city and filter listings by “where”, using a list of support categories.   As well as pulling details for each places.

  • Database Size - Could not find
  • Store / Cache Data -No
  • Attribution - Yes with logo
  • Multi-Provider IDs - No
  • Meta Data - Yes
  • Rating / Review - Overall count with 3 review excerpts
  • Deals / Offers - Yes
  • Revenue Share - Yes with Commission Junction
  • Call Limits - 10,000 calls/day
  • Response Format - JSON
  • Authentication - OAuth
  • Pricing - Free
  • Check-In - No
  • Write - No
  • Delete - No

URL - http://www.yelp.com/developers/documentation/v2/overview


YP

Search Overview - Providing a places search that can be queried by keyword and longitude/latitude, street address, city, postal code, Neighborhood, state, points of interest or by phone number with a radius.  Places details are also provided.

  • Database Size - Could not find
  • Store / Cache Data - No
  • Attribution - Yes
  • Multi-Provider IDs - No
  • Meta Data - No
  • Rating / Review - yes
  • Deals / Offers - Yes
  • Revenue Share - Yes
  • Call Limits -  50,000 requests per day.
  • Response Format - XML / JSON
  • Authentication - Key
  • Pricing - Free
  • Check-In - No
  • Write - No
  • Delete - No

URL - http://developer.yp.com/

If you see anything missing or incorrect, let me know at @citygridapiteam.