Apparently, Google is no longer giving out new search keys to their Google Search API.
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/12/google_depreciates_SOAP_API.html
My first thought was that they are retiring the SOAP API and substituting a simpler REST approach. My cohorts and I regularly have battles over the merits of REST vs. SOAP. But instead of providing a SOAP API like Yahoo Search, they're steering people towards an Ajax Search API. The Ajax mplementation is more visual/web/widget based.
Do you know JavaScript? That's what you need to use the Ajax Search API. The only other way to tap into the Google Search API now is to get a contract with them.
Now its easier to build google searches into a web-pages, but they've taken away a clean way to perform server-side Google API-supported searches for the masses. That's not a very nice Web 2.0 move on Google's part. Lots of people have relied on Google's SOAP API to learn the art of Web Services. So it seems - the bean-counters have won and the developers have lost in this battle. Obviously -- Google wants some of the real estate on your web-page so they can splash a Google logo, an Ad or two, and monetize it all!
If money is the root of all evil, and this move was strictly to make money...This could be seen as a violation of the Google Code of Conduct: Don't be evil
Is this the future of Web APIs? Will Web 3.0 be an exercise in ad-generating widgets?
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