In the footsteps of Zillow, Urban Mapping is launching a free neighborhood API:
The Urban Mapping API uses REST, or representational state transfer, an XML-based protocol for summoning Web services over HTTP. The Urban Mapping developer portal, located at http://developer.urbanmapping.com, and REST-based API enable developers to quickly and easily build applications that are designed with enhanced local search in mind.
The new developer portal also offers code snippets, a technical demo, documentation for SOAP and REST, a developer forum, and registration for the free neighborhood API and direct access to the industry-leading Urban Mapping neighborhood database which contains more than 25,000 distinct neighborhoods, each geographically defined. Urban Mapping data also includes more than 1,000 cities and towns in the United States. A Canadian and European product includes more than 100 cities.
This is formal announcement of the API, which was informally, already available. This works to improve the accuracy of consumer facing local apps and can help geogargeted advertising be much more accurate.
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Expect little posting over the next couple of days as I try and recover from this dreaded flu-thing that’s going around.
Screenwerk 
May 27, 2008 at 5:47 pm
[…] filled for US neighborhoods. A couple of companies (notably Urban Mapping) and Zillow both recently opened up free access to their proprietary boundary files. You’re beginning to see the structure seeping into […]