To find an api by functionality, simply go to google.com’s search engine and type in what functionality you’re looking for, such as “distance calculator” and “api,” but you might get a bunch of forum results. You can target specific types of websites by including “sites:gov” in your search, but another approach is to search using “sdk” instead of “api.” SDK stands for “Software Development Kit” and is also referred to as “devkit.” This can bring up more specifically software development-oriented query results.
Many of the Social Media platforms, in order to make it as easy to connect to their content as possible, offer a lot of functionality through API support. With Facebook APIs, for example, you can log in, process payments, place advertisements, utilize a gaming interface–all facilitating integration, marketing, monetization, and distribution of content. You have to register as a developer with most social media platforms, but again, it’s free, and the documentation for most of them is quite thorough.
AddThis offers a free set of APIs for some basic functionality, and more bells & whistles for a subscription (“Go Pro”). You can sign up at their website to get an api key, and they will walk you through where to put the code in your web application. You have to make sure that you work in a browser that does not have the plugin Adblock installed, however, as the AddThis dashboard may show up completely blank, and will also not likely see any of the results of inputting the code, either. As soon as you sign up and access your dashboard, you will see a code pop up to put in your header to link to AddThis for the APIs.
The dashboard has two tabs, one that shows Analytics for the past two weeks, and a Tool Gallery on the other (which is usually what pops up first, because when you first sign up, there are no analytics to show). These tools fall into four categories, Share, Follow, Recommended Content, and Conversion. While some of them will display on a plain html page not hosted on a site, many of them (such as the free conversion tool that pops up a “welcome header” on landing on the site) require that the website be hosted and associated with a domain. It is through the AddThis > Dashboard > Tool Gallery that you actually configure your tools, so the tools will be consistent throughout your site, but you can choose where you place them.
Naturally, there is a lot of documentation available, and in the Default Code example, you just need to know what your api code–or profile id code in this case–to plug in.
And here it is in the body–the rectangles delineate which code goes with which set of sharing tools. The Vertical Sharing takes much more code because it is configuring for the individual links.
You would be able to get more functionality into a hosted page, naturally, as this is a free-standing html document that’s just done for an exercise. Enjoy!