Data Source Handbook by Pete Warden, a former Apple engineer and the founder of OpenHeatMap is a relatively slim book which covers many APIs for various Web2.0 sites such as Google, GitHub, Delicious, and bit.ly.

This slim book is exactly what the title implies, it is a book about the various open APIs for modern websites with some information about how to use those APIs when you are programming mashups or other sites which can use them. Overall, the book is densely packed with good information. I would always suggest following up with the links listed to ensure the APIs and their uses are still consistent with what is listed in the book, but I haven't found any errors yet.

The curiosity for me with this book is why it is in print form. To me, this would be an excellent website which could hyperlink to the various APIs and would have given Mr. Warden a chance to include either basic tutorials to demonstrate his ideas, or give links to basic tuts which could further elaborate the subject.

Do not mistake that criticism, I have found in my own work these days, I have been referring back to it to where I can use many of these APIs for other uses and he does a good job with different suggestions on what you can do if you want to play around and explore.

I'd say if you are going to write a lot of mashups or want to extract a ton of data from sites, this is a good reference book which will help do just exactly that.

Again the book is Data Source Handbook and can be ordered in print or e-book form by following the title link…

This is a short eye opening book on the data and apis that are freely available on the web.

It gives a good quick introduction to what's out there, helping to feed the ideas on kind of data is easily accessible. This kind of information may be easily available at google, but it's well worth the price to have it easily accessible in one spot for easy reference.

With an increasingly social and mashupable web, being able to pull in data from a wide range of sources is essential. The Data Source Handbook provides a good starting point for getting some of the public data off the web.

This book is a great list of API on various themes to access data on the web. Each API is provided with a description and an example of query/response.
Unfortunately, some themes are only coverded with data from the US.

The Data Source Handbook by Pete Warden provides a concise and handy guide to some of the main sources of public data accessible on the web today. It's a very short book of 40 pages. This in itself does not stand against the book. These sources are rapidly changing and compiling and committing an exhaustive survey to a printed volume would damn it to almost instant obsolescence. It would also prevent any treatment of individual datasources in any useful detail. As it is, Warden is able to pick a select few and identify strengths and available APIs in a useful fashion.
Warden organises the type of sources into logical categories and identifies some key sources for each:

Websites
People
Search terms
Locations
Companies
IP Addresses
Books, films, movies, music and products

He selects the key open providers of data in these areas and systematically shows how to access the information along with simple programmatic instructions. In a volume of such limited length you would not expect to find extensive instructions or discussion - and you won't. What you have is a very concise survey identifying the key players and giving a nutshell indication of what you can use the datasources for.
This is a useful and quick reference for anyone routinely accessing, compiling, aggregating or augmenting their own datasets. Although very few of the sources identified would be new to most people in the data analysis space, this does provide a useful compilation and also handy concise reminder of how one might augment a limited dataset quickly in an automated fashion.
This is an easily accessible volume, well organized and with the only major failing that it will be become dated in a published form. However, as an eBook it is ideal and I would recommend it to anyone new to the area of adata visualisation looking for some great sample data to access, or to the more seasoned data traveller looking to keep their familiarity with the wide variety of available data current.

A concise reference 'cookbook' guide for developers who want to integrate 'free' public data into their website or application, Pete Warden provides a guide to the APIs. The organisation of the book is quite logical, based on the subject of data you want to work with, such as websites, services, information on names of people, search APIs, and so on.

It's useful, perhaps not a book you would refer to constantly but a good source of reference for those who rely on external information to enrich their existing solution. The book is quite short and perhaps could do with a bit more in terms of other third party APIs, and a lot of the APIs are only useful for the U.S, but other than that, I would rate this book quite well. I did enjoy the author talking about whats good and not so good about using each of the APIs, which is a time-saver.

There's a simple word describing this book: toolbox. The Data Source Handbook is a great source of free APIs for a great number of different applications - with only one drawback: size.

The book starts by offering a simple categorization, that helps the reader find his way through the 57 different sources. Some of these can prove extremely useful (such as Flickr and Delicious), while the author is honest in mentioning specific drawbacks that some of the sources have. The links in the book are also a welcome addition (although I don't really know if it could work well in any other way).

However, this book is definitely not for people with no programming skills. In my case (I have limited programming skills) it was a bit hard to get used to the book. Adding to this, the main drawback of this book is that it's short, but this is normal, as it is not meant to include full descriptions.

Overall, this is a great toolbox for developers wishing to enhance their services. I enjoyed experimenting while reading the book (and learning as well, in order to improve my programming skills) and I'll definitely keep on searching for related titles.

Use: quick and short guide on web data sources that can be used (mostly) in any application to give it "top value".
Great: short but loaded with 57 different data sources covered on Websites, People, Locations, Companies, Books, Films…
The author has also made a good effort pointing out the main drawbacks that a developer can face when using them.

Not many examples are provided: shortness is a premium over completeness. However, all the book is filled with links to more detailed information and examples

Great and cheap acquisition that can be easily read on a weekend. One of those books that shouldn't be kept too far from a development desk.

The Data Source handbook by Pete Warden is a short reference guide to Open Data. The reference has a clear focus on how to get open data on websites, people, locations, companies and common products like books, films and music.

It provides important information on various web services today that provide this information. Their endpoint urls, the data formats, sample input/output responses are discussed. It has just about enough for anyone who is interested in understanding what open data is available and how to go around fetching it. If you have an idea on building a mashup that needs access to this data, this book can definitely be your starting point that shows you where you can get this data.

I recommend it as a good reference of Open Data APIs. It will surely whet your appetite for more Open APIs.