Using APIs to get Free Web Site Content April 10
Content is king, and unique content is a Kingmaker. But generating the content takes work - surely there is an easier way.
If falling foul of duplicate content filters are your main concern, then ‘little-used’ content is just as good as unique content. This is where 3rd party APIs are great. You can get plenty of content, and if you hunt around you can find APIs that almost no one else is using.
A great place to find APIs is ProgrammableWeb, which lists heaps of APIs and mashups that use them.
Some APIs to get you started:
Hot or Not Plenty of text descriptions of people
TryNT Google suggestions, horoscopes, movie reviews, stacks of goodies.
Steer clear of the big ones, (eg - Amazon), they’ve been done to death.
One last point. It is probably not a great idea to base your entire business around a free API. Service can be patchy (Hot or Not goes down about once a month) and grumpy if you do too well (witness the pain Amazon has put StatsAholic through). As an extra way to get free content for your web site though, it is hard to beat!