We were waiting and the day has came.  Google has opened up the Google+ API. At first glance it seems pretty normal.  Typical Restful stuff.

We love the way the programmable web has evolved, so we’re using existing standards and best practices wherever we can:

  • Our API methods are RESTful HTTP requests which return JSON responses.
  • Our payload formats use standard syntax (e.g. PoCo for people info, ActivityStrea.ms for activities).
  • We use OAuth 2 for secure trusted access to user data.

The only part that could be as issue is the OAuth stuff, but for now, they are only exposing public data, so short of registering your application, you may not need to bother with it. I do expect that like with Twitter, someone will write a library call to handle the OAuth2 stuff.  I, for one, would love that.  One less hassle to deal with.

If you signed up for the waiting list you would have gotten a email like this..

Greetings developers,

Thank you for showing your interest in the Google+ platform on our developer interest form. We promised to let you know when we had more details to share. Well, that time has come…

Today, we’re launching the first of the Google+ APIs. This initial API release is focused on public data only — it lets you read information that people have shared publicly on Google+. Read our blog post for more details.

Also, we’re happy to introduce a new Google+ developers site. This will be the place to go for our policies, terms, discussions with other developers, access to documentation, tools that make development on the Google+ platform easier and more fun, and of course, the place where announcements concerning new releases will be made.

The most important link here is the the Google+ API blog.  Here you can see sample code and get a helds up on the common issues that will popup for the less to godlike programmers out there.  On the blog you would see this Google+ API example

For example, if you want to get my profile information, you can use the people.get method by sending the following HTTP request:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/people/108189587050871927619?key=yourAPIKey

which returns the following JSON encoded output (excerpted for brevity):

{
 "kind": "plus#person",
 "id": "108189587050871927619",
 "displayName": "Chris Chabot",
 "image": {
  "url": "https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-cQNLOQzkGpE/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAEjo/M9_pXL-ra4Q/photo.jpg"
 },
 "organizations": [
  {
   "name": "Google+ Developer Relations",
   "title": "Developer Advocate & Manager",
   "type": "work"
  }
 ]
}

Pretty normal stuff as far as I can tell.

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