What is an API?
An API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of rules and protocols that allow different software applications to communicate with each other. APIs are often provided by websites and services as a way for developers to access data directly without the need for scraping. In the context of data collection, APIs allow businesses to request specific information from a website or platform, often in a structured format like JSON or XML.
Popular platforms like Twitter, Google, and Facebook provide APIs to access data for various applications. For example, a company might use the Twitter API to collect tweets related to a specific topic for sentiment analysis or use the Google Maps API to extract location data.