BooRah, the restaurant search service, has announced the release of the BooRah API. The API augments the existing BooRah syndication platform, which is currently used by newspapers and other web sites that have a local focus. Their API is a standards-based web services platform, that also provides enhanced mobile platform capabilities. On mobile platforms, the API automatically integrates with Mozilla Geode and Skyhook Loki when they are present.
The API provides restaurant search capability based on location, with the returned results including ratings for food, service, and ambiance. ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick provided an evaluation of the services BooRah provides this past April in an informative post titled “BooRah: I Could Give Up Yelp For This”.
The BooRah API is REST-based, with the results returned in XML. Developers can submit up to 5000 API requests per day. See our BooRah API profile for more details.
The BooRah development team is very open to suggestions for enhancing the API. In the API release announcement, BooRah’s Nagaraju Bandaru said:
We believe that BooRah’s semantic technology is uniquely positioned to deliver necessary content for mobile applications. The release of this API is a first step in supporting development of location-enabled restaurant applications are we are eager to drive the adoption by enhancing based on requirements from the community.
You can see the BooRah API in action at BooRah’s DineFinder site. DineFinder integrates the BooRah API and Google Maps to create a basic restaurant search service.
In keeping-up with the latest mobile platforms, BooRah has also just released a restaurant search app that runs on the Android G1.
