Feb 22

Will Google Latitude Check-Ins Disrupt Foursquare’s Game?

Google quietly added check-ins to Google Latitude, taking on Foursquare in the local check-in game.

Currently Google Latitude users can check-in via their iPhone and Android apps, and view check-ins via their Google Latitude web app and dashboard.

I went through the Google Latitude API to see if an endpoint was added for check-ins, but currently you can only work with a users current location as well as location history.

So for now its just an application feature, but I’m sure its only a matter of time before recording check-ins and pulling a users historical check-ins will be available via the API.

Foursquare has dominated when it comes to local check-in, even remaining on top when challenged by Facebook check-ins.

I’m curious to see what the new Google Latitude feature will do to change Foursquare’s game?

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Google

Feb 21

Hyperpublic Places Developer Transition

Local data and discovery startup Hyperpublic was just acquired by Groupon.

Hyperpublic provided a places API allowing you to search for local businesses, restaurants, points of interest, and landmarks as well as a deals and events API.

Hyperpublic will be shutting down their data services on 3/2/2012, and recommends CityGrid Places API as a replacement for their service.

With SimpleGeo and now Hyperpublic, its becoming clear that running a businesses providing places and business data is hard, and acquisition is often the future for these startups. This can create lots of problems for developers who are trying to build applications and sustainable businesses around places data.

If you are building a local web or mobile app, I recommend using CityGrid Places API. CityGrid is owned by IAC an established company, ensuring our Places API will not be going anywhere.

Not only can developers depend on the API being around tomorrow, they can generate revenue inside their application using Places that Pay or web or mobile advertising.

Another lesson I take away from the Hyperpublic and SimpleGeo acquisition is that the space is hot! Local is definitely a good space to be in 2012.

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Places API

Feb 18

Hyp3r0cal for WordPress

I wanted a way to make the rich content available via CityGrid APIs accessible to anyone, even if you weren’t a developer.

CityGrid has some great iOS and Android software development kits (SDK) available for building local, mobile applications.  I’ve also built some samples and starter kits for building local web applications in PHP, Python and Ruby.

WordPress seemed like the perfect next step to reach a larger audience, so I took the PHP Hyp3rL0cal directory that uses CityGrid Places API, and deployed it as a WordPress Plugin.

Now you can launch a quick section on your WordPress blog or site that allows you to display businesses for your area, in whatever category you wish.

This CityGrid Hyp3rL0cal WordPress Plugin is meant to be a project that developers can learn from and even deploy their own local WordPress Plugins that use CityGrid APIs.  However its completely functional and could be deployed by any non-developer as well.

Right now you can download or fork at Github, as I stabilize it further I will publish to the CityGrid developer center code samples page.

If you have any questions or need help, visit the CityGrid Developer Forums or ping us on Twitter via @citygridapiteam.

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Code / Places API / Platforms / Reviews API / Tools

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