Top 10 Location Data APIs
As the benefits of location data become more well-known, companies are seeking to implement it into their business strategy. However, implementing external data into your pre-existing systems can be hard, which is why many consider using an API.
APIs (Applicable Programming Interface) are interfaces that allow software to interact with other types of software (a bit like “translating” between softwares)..
While larger businesses may build their own, most companies use third party platform APIs as third party technology requires less maintenance and tends to innovate
faster
There are so many APIs on the market that it can be difficult for businesses to decide which to use, especially for a data type as extensive as location data..
To make things a little easier, here is our list the top 10 location data APIs on the market today.
Provided by Reveal Mobile
VISIT Data is a fully customizable location data API for enterprise production and analytics teams. It is provided by Reveal Mobile, a leader in location-based analytics.
VISIT Data is a high-quality API, with CCPA and privacy-compliant sources of data. It has enough volume and scale to provide enterprise clients with custom solutions for all their location data requirements.
With VISIT Data, businesses can build and power their own solutions. The API is fully customizable and flexible for your business needs, and will allow you to create new databases or enhance those you already use.
VISIT Data helps businesses with managing footfall attribution; audience building,and customized delivery content. It is a high-powered interface that will make it easy for your business to build location-based audiences and reach them through digital advertising and social media. VISIT Data also reduces ad waste and provides fully accurate competitive intelligence, giving you a unique edge over your competition.
This powerful API, produced by Reveal Mobile, will provide your business with real-time measurement and analysis of the foot traffic resulting from your campaigns, allowing you to optimize results on a continuous basis.
Features:
Provided by Mapbox
Maps, provided by Mapbox, has a whole suite of REST APIs that will allow your business to not only use pre-existing maps but also design its own maps to aid with location data analysis.
The main focus of Maps is putting control back in the hands of the developers using powerful developer tools and top quality location data. Mapbox Studio gives designers control over everything from colours to fonts, and even includes 3D features and camera angles. It also allows mapping, navigation, and search experiences across platforms.
Maps stands out by using artificial intelligence (AI) to learn from every application it is embedded in. Using these learnings, Maps APIs gather real-time data from millions of MAUs to deliver hundreds of thousands of map updates daily. This allows the APIs to deliver real-time and scheduled events maps, based on the user’s search criteria.
Mapbox also has an offline platform called Atlas. Atlas can be used everywhere, and can be run from your own infrastructure, allowing your your business to securely access highly accurate maps at any time or place.
Atlas’s vector basemaps are generated by 500m users worldwide and updated on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. The software also allows your business to create heatmaps that run on web, mobile, desktop or AR.
Maps really hands the reins back to the designer. It is secure, easy to use, mobile-friendly, and highly customizable.
The key features included in a suite of APIs are:
Provided by Predict HQ
PredictHQ API is an events API that collects events data from all around the world for analysis. It then adds more data, verifies it, and enriches it so that your business can leverage this information to reap more benefit from the market.
Selecting from millions of verified events, PredictHQ ranks the events recommended for your business to analyse and gain insight from by using market location and geocode. This enables your company to understand the events that have the most impact on your business.
With this analysis, businesses can forecast new demand opportunities, optimize pricing strategies, identify and adapt to predicted demand spikes and data modelling. This is the event signals feature and it is available in both the API and web app.
PredictHQ is customizable to your business requirements and includes the following features:
Airship is an engagement platform for businesses that want to deliver relevant and timely notifications within their own location app. With Airship, your business will be able to build long-lasting, loyal customer relationships, improving your long-term performance..
The Airship platform is a powerful tool for retrieving data and analysing notifications to help your business better understand its performance. Insights can be viewed either through the Urban Airship platform or from your own platform.
Airship delivers automatic mobile engagement to your customers through the online message centre, its application, or via push notifications. This increases your brand awareness and keeps your customers engaged
With Airship, your business can use real-time data to understand your customers, increase campaign engagement and discover new opportunities. This helps you create more opportunities for your customers to connect to your brand, by sending messages tailored to their individual needs.
Features:
Provided by Microsoft Bing Maps
Bing Maps has a suite of APIs, including a REST Service API. Bing’s REST Service API allows your business to create static maps, geocode addresses, retrieve imagery data, and create traffic routes.
Features
Provided by Mapillary
Mapillary allows your business to add street-level imagery and machine-generated map features to your applications.
Mapillary is a powerful cross-platform API build around the concept of resources. Mapillary allows your business to interact with various resources, including: images, sequences, changesets, object detections. You can also use it to engage your users.
Mapillary organizes images as sequences. A sequence of images is continuously captured by a user at a given time. Sequences can be searched by location, users, or capture dates.
Mapillary’s default format is GeoJSON, although this can be altered if necessary. A sequence has the following properties
Provided by Leaflet
Leaflet is an open-sourced Javascript library for mobile friendly interactive maps. Instead of trying to everything to an average standard, Leaflet focuses on doing the most fundamental things perfectly.
Leaflet is designed to be simple and easy to use, to give great performance, and to work across all major desktop and mobile platforms. It can be extended with lots of plug-ins and has an easy to read source code.
Leaflet is easily customisable and has tons of features and will supply all the mapping features your business is likely to need.
Features:
Provided by OpenLayers
OpenLayers API is a high performance, feature-packed, open-source JavaScript library for all your mapping needs.
It displays map data in web browsers as slippy maps. OpenLayers makes it easy to add a map to any web page. It can display map tiles, vector data and markers loaded from any source. It furthers the use of geographical information of all kinds. And, best of all, it’s free.
FEATURES:
Provided by Mapzen
Mapzen API is an open, sustainable, and accessible mapping source. Mapzen enables your business to make fast, aesthetic, and responsive maps wherever your customers are.
You can build maps in minutes, with either JavaScript, Android, iOS, or Tizen. Mapzen allows you to search the planet quickly with turn by turn navigation.
With Mapzen, travel navigation is delivered to apps on browsers, mobile phones, tablets, or smart watch.
Use gorgeous 2D and 3D styles created by Mapzen’s expert designers; or customize your own with fully flexible styling tools.
Features:
nextzen.js –Use Mapzen projects in your web applications
Cartography – Use basemaps and icons in your applications
Tangram rendering 2D and 3D maps
Tilezen vector tiles and terrain tiles – The latest open data using vector tiles and open elevation data
Pelias geocoder – Find places and addresses
Valhalla routing engine – Add worldwide routing and navigation to your web and mobile applications
Transitland – Add worldwide public-transit support to Valhalla. Build apps, visualizations, and analyses)
Gazetteer – Administrative boundaries and hierarchies for countries, regions, counties, localities, neighbourhoods, postal codes, venues, and other places
Metro Extracts – Download manageable, city-sized portions of OpenStreetMap data
Elevation Service – Request digital elevation model (DEM) data worldwide
Libpostal address parsing – Parse and expand address data
Provided by Here Technologies
The Here routing API is a web service API that offers easy and fast routing for several regions of the world. It can be used in a variety of consumer and enterprise applications, including:
The HERE routing API primarily offers data that can be used to calculate and update route information, including it’s time, distance, fuel cost and possible stops.
The specific route data has many attributes, including road numbers, road condition, special restrictions, traffic, seasonal closures, and more.
In addition, the maps can be enhanced with accessibility information, shortcuts, public transport information, and more. There is also specific truck attributes information, like height and weight restrictions.
So that’s our list of the top location data APIs for 2020. APIs can help businesses to solve problems, create new features and launch new products more efficiently. Choosing a location API will depend on the end goal you wish to achieve. You should consider carefully which location API may be best for you before you begin your project.
.png)
