Outside WordPress—third-party APIs
The WordPress plugins we’ve listed previously generally make use of APIs to add extra functionality to our site.
Note
An API, or Application Programming Interface, is a set of rules that lets you use data from another service in your site or app. For example, you can use the Google Maps API to add maps to your site without having to code on your own, or the twitter API to add a twitter feed.
APIs don’t have to relate to a third-party service though—there are other APIs such as the Geolocation API that have been defined by the W3C (the body that defines the standards by which websites work) rather than by a service provider. For more information and an overview of some of these, see http://www.netmagazine.com/features/developer-s-guide-html5-apis.
Some APIs you might want to use include the following:
Google Maps API—https://developers.google.com/maps/
Geolocation API—http://dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source.html
Twitter API—https://dev.twitter.com/
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