Unified Data APIs for Geo, Weather and Beyond

by Kin Lane on 09/13/2011

Last week I covered Centralized Geo Data with New InfoChimps API, and talked about how I felt it was a Look at the Future of Data. After writing I started thinking about other data that is ready for the same type of treatment that InfoChimps is giving geo data.

I was reading Audrey’s post today on O’Reilly today called, A new look for weather data, where she talks with WeatherSpark co-founder Jacob Norda about his company's approach to weather data and visualizations.

Norda talks about where the problems with traditional weather information are, how WeatherSpark gets its data, and how weather data can be improved overall.

It seems weather data suffers from all the same problems as geo data, such as multiple sources, varying schemas, huge datasets that are not easy linked with other sets of data. Weather data has huge legacy system usage as well as massive growth in generation and consumption with the introduction of sensors and mobile devices.

Norda concludes the interview by saying, “We're considering offering a unified API, but it's in the pre-roadmap stage at this point.” Seems like a common theme with data and APIs, lately.

What other areas of data are reaching this point, where developers could benefit from a unified API?