4 Reasons You Should Use A Real Time API for Live Data
Have you ever wondered how you can see the routes your uber driver takes when you order for a ride? It is amazing how you can monitor the driver’s direction and if he is even getting closer to you or not. Or how your favorite sports app gives you live updates of games as they are happening? I wonder what it would be like if you had to wait till a game ended before getting the details. Or how you can monitor live updates in the stock market and see changes as they occur? Okay, enough wondering. All these things are made possible by a remarkable piece of software known as a real time API.
An Application Programming Interface (API) is an interface that allows pieces of software to talk to each other. But no one likes sending a message and getting a response after two days. So also, you wouldn’t like it if you ordered an Uber and you only got a response from the app after 30 minutes. An automated API communicates changes in data as they occur. It allows you to track changes in a particular dataset right as it happens. You can implement this concept in any area that you need information on the go.
If you are just hearing about real time API for the first time, then you should read further to know more about it and how you can apply it to obtain updated data every time you need it. Kindly use the table of contents below to go to the part that interests you the most!
Table of Contents
What Is a Real Time API?
According to research, real-time means in 30 milliseconds or less. Essentially, this means that an API end-to-end call should take no more than 30 ms and preferably less. Let’s break this down. An API call goes through the following process from start to completion:
- Route APIs: The API infrastructure has to make sure that the consumer API (like your sports betting app) is on track to the right backend (say ESPN).
- Authenticate APIs: It also has to confirm that the consumer API is allowed to access the backend.
- Secure APIs: Encrypt the APIs to prevent data breaches.
- Shape APIs: Provide the proper bandwidth to make sure the call goes through.
- Cache APIs: When processing a large number of requests, there needs to be a way to handle that large volume. Caching APIs is how.
This is the step-by-step process of how an API call goes from start to completion. Therefore, a real time API is one that can complete this entire process in 30ms or less. An interface that can update in sync with actual action is more common use than you can imagine. Do you have a smart home device? Yeah, a real time API is how Alexa tells you every time China releases some new technology.
For instance, I have a friend that runs a logistics service who was complaining about being unable to monitor their drivers to make sure they are keeping to schedule – until he implemented software on their vehicles that transmits the live location of every driver currently out back to their headquarters. That is a perfect example of using a real time API to solve business problems. Even better, their customers can also monitor the drivers from the business app. A real time reporting API can help you stay abreast of the latest news from all over the world, sending it directly to your device as it breaks. The same goes for real time stock quotes API or it could simply be about knowing when new episodes of your favorite show have been released! Even the betting industry implements API for updated sports news and more.
4 Reasons You Should Have a Real Time Data API
Using an Application Programming Interface (API) entails a series of tasks, tools, and protocols designed to help even the remotest of software components in a system communicate. This process helps to prevent companies from having to reinvent the wheel every time they want to build a suite of services. For example, rather than launch their own satellite and create a mapping service, ride-hailing service Uber, simply creates an API and pay Google to use their mapping service instead. Thus, they can focus on building their ride-hailing app perfectly and simply integrate location data and mapping services from Google using an API to set up communication between their app and Google. This technological development focuses on the interaction between the user to the software components and within the latter. It allows users on a network to share data.
Imagine all the incredible things you can do with API data then multiply that when you add real-time capabilities to the picture. It’s an endless venture! Additionally, real time API assists the consumer with immediately getting data even before their next query. APIs provide a lot of value which you can discover here:
1. Easy availability of business insight
Real time API has helped mightily with promoting innovations in the business world. No matter your industry, the technology always has a way of creating solutions with ease. Having an app in which my friend and customers can monitor the rider’s progress improved his services by 88%.
In real-time data analytics, the value of the data is determined by how quickly you can access, process, and extract it. So, you need to collect the data as it updates and you can do that via web scraping.
2. Improving & enabling technology
Over time, developers usually have a wide range of modifications to make with respect to program codes. Real time API saves them this hassle by pushing data to them, which decreases the intricacies of building software applications. Instead of searching for ways to alter the codes to suit updates, they can focus on creating more customer satisfaction.
Furthermore, web content extraction makes the process even more straightforward. All you need is the URL and Internet access to get all the real-time data you need. While some programmers may prefer to write their codes, the bone of contention is to reduce the complexity of data. Therefore, web scraping is straightforward and requires little to no adjustments.
3. Data timeliness and orderliness
More often than not, real-time data is typically time-sensitive which means they require instant access, process, and extraction. If data is not implemented immediately, it may become irrelevant in less than 30 milliseconds. For instance, communication is an integral part of a business that requires information to be passed and received instantly. Real time messaging API allows you to communicate effectively.
Also, writing a project collectively on Google doc allows you and your team to work efficiently. You can send feedback on a paragraph through the “Add comment” feature and receive the correction instantly or as you wish. The real time API world is filled with endless opportunities and when combined with web scraping, they become an unstoppable duo empowering you with data.
4. Enhance user experience with real time data API
Real-time data is everywhere and the demands are increasing each day. Most users NEED real-time experiences to thrive daily. Even social media platforms use real-time data. For example, real-time API lets you stream the activities of followers and tweeps you follow on the timeline. Also, turning on the post notifications of your best cooking show account is real-time data. Then you can scrape the pop-up posts to get their latest recipes and information.
Talking about scraping, it is an organized process that allows you to extract data from the web then import it to a file. Find out more about how you can utilize the process for real-time data API.
Using a Real Time Search API for Marketing
Nowhere in the business process requires more up-to-date data than marketing. A slight shift in the expressed needs of your target audience can make your marketing campaign entirely irrelevant. Even worse, marketing your product with outdated statistics relative to the rest of the market can make you lose money and customers. Here are some datasets that you can obtain using a real time data API:
- Pricing data: Your marketing campaign is not complete without a competitive pricing strategy. But prices are constantly changing. A competitor might be getting a key component of their product at a lower price than you which means their prices will become lower than yours. Using a real time API like Scraping Robot is the only way you can keep up with such a fickle dataset like pricing.
- Social media info: These days, when something important happens in people’s lives (such as clocking 21), the first place they announce it is on social media. This means you have to constantly keep an eye on the social media activities of your target audience. With a real time API, you can have changes in the profiles or activities of your customers on social media updated into your analytics software in real-time, giving you ample time to react to these changes, as opposed to if you had to wait to get this data.
- Location data: Location data is one of the most valuable datasets you can have about your customers. It is also one of the hardest to obtain because it is always changing. If a prospect’s location changes five times in one day, how do you keep track of all the places he went to? With a real time API, that’s how. It can tell you every time someone from a new location accesses your website or reads your content or views your marketing message. That is how valuable a real time data API can be to your marketing efforts.
- SEO data: This is another set of data that is important for marketing and is constantly changing. Links get broken, new articles are published, new articles claim top spots on Google, etc. All these changes can tell you a lot about the steps you need to take to beat the competition but only if you can track them. A real time search API like Scraping Robot’s Google scraper and HTML scraper can easily help you do this.
Scraping Robot’s Real Time Data API
At Scraping Robot, we have developed an API that offers you immense possibilities. Coupled with our web scraping service, you can scrape data from any website on the internet and then send it directly into any piece of software you want with minimal manual input from you. Essentially you could obtain real-time data updates form any platform you want and connect these updates to your software using our API. With proxies for our partner company, Rayobyte, we offer you a very fast and efficient service that helps you get from point A to point B in your data journey in the shortest possible time. To get started, check out our API page here.
Conclusion
Real-time data updates can make all the difference between a good business decision and a bad one. Some datasets decay in seconds, so the only way to make use of them is by getting live, real time updates of these data sets. To do this, you need a solid and reliable real time API and Scraping Robots’ is one of the best out there. Give us a try and let us know what you think.
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