What are the best APIs for Hackathons? [Part 1]

Hackathons are all about technology, innovation and productivity. With as little as 24 hours to make a prototype, every minute are valuable. Luckily, there is an abundance of APIs available for you to add a diverse range of rich features onto your platform. So make sure you don’t reinvent the wheel!

I will be showing you some of the most popular API you can use for your hackathon here and the next few posts.

Social API:

As social media became increasingly popular, efficiently channeling those resources can be extremely valuable for your product.

• Facebook: The social media giant offers API far beyond social media. Some of the highlights of their technologies offered are Graph API, which is used to add and read data from Facebook’s “Social Graph”; Live Video API, which allow you to incorporate live stream to your application; Facebook Analytics, a set of tools that help you track interaction on your platform; and of course, the popular Facebook Login API.
• Twitter: While offering less variety compare to Facebook, tools such as Twitter search API offers valuable data on trends. For example, Twitter allows developers to search for tweets by places.[Sidenote: Twitter also created the popular and easy-to-use Bootstrap CSS framework that support responsive design. Do check that out!]
• Reddit: Another popular social API for hackathon. While the website is slightly more difficult to navigate, the uniqueness of Reddit and its diverse culture can offer values to your product. For the open source fans out there, Reddit also completely open sourced all their code!

Locational API

Adding locational information can give your application the flair it needed to catch the eye of the judges. Here are some of the most popular Geo APIs.

• Google Map API: Unsurprisingly Google Map is by far the most popular API used for any geo-related data. It supports functionality ranging from placing a map with markers on your website to visualizing data using heat maps with coordinates. If you prefer more details instruction, Udacity created a free crash course on how to use Google Map API.
• Google Place API: Google place is a branch of the Google map API that I think worth mentioning. This API provides access to more details information about a location such as photograph and user reviews of a venue.
  Not sure which Google Map API you should use? Click here for a helpful checklist.
• Yelp API: Want to include public opinions regarding various locations on your solution? The crowd-sourced review site provide an API that you can use to incorporate more subjective data such as the top restaurants available in a city.

I hope this article help inspired you to solve unique problems in an innovative way. If not? Don’t worry! We will post more about popular API for the next couples of days!

Keep Hacking.