The New Trade Me API and Windows Phone 7 Developer Competition

Remember the post from Rowan Simpson from May 2007?

Why doesn’t Trade Me have an API?

At the end of this post Rowan asks:

If we build it will they come? Are there enough developers in New Zealand to justify our effort in creating an API? How many people will actually use it? How many people will use the applications they build on top of it?

Well three years on the landscape has changed and we are going to find out.

Yesterday Trade Me released the first version of their API, built using REST, OAuth with .NET and WCF.

Read their announcement Trade Me’s API unleashed (at last!) – track the community buzz

Earlier in the year I built a couple of sample apps for Trade Me that used the REST based read only API that Trade Me created for the Windows Vista Launch Gadget back in 2007.

The first was https://www.myauctions.co.nz, a demo web page that uses jQuery and Windows Azure to track auctions by user.

This second a sample Windows Phone 7 application that performs the same task. Video below and source code.

Following on from that project I’m happy to introduce a new competition running this month. The New Zealand Windows Phone 7 Challenge that incorporates a category for a Trade Me application.

Matt from my team has been working closely with Trade Me to release a Windows Phone 7 starter kit to get you started to release

Check out his blog post to find out more!