Google releases the Google API: what does this mean for us?
Dan Gillmor’s explanation.

“Google, the search engine company, has released the Google Web APIs. API stands for Applications Programming Interface. This is a big deal.

First, it means that programmers will be able to easily create Google searches inside other programs, eliminating the need to go to the Google Web page for queries. No one knows for sure what this means yet, but the possibilities are endless.

Second, it ratifies in a big way the somewhat misunderstood notion of Web services, the idea of computers talking to other computers (on our behalf) to get things done. The Google API is a simple, and obvious, Web service. Obvious, that is, now that they’ve done it.

Nelson Minar, one of the Google engineers responsible for this breakthrough, acknowledges that there are some restrictions on what third parties can do with this new tool (or toy). For example, there’s a 1,000-search daily limit, and the search engine will return 10 results per search.

But Minar says he and his colleagues can’t wait to see what people come up with. I can’t, either. This is cool, in the extreme.”