Hoover's API Developer Blog

Access to your Hoover's API development key is available for three months. Because we are interested in your project and want to ensure you are maximizing Hoover's API, continued access is predicated on active engagement with our staff. While you will be notified as the three month deadline approaches, we encourage you to keep in contact with us. Reference our Terms of Use to review any restrictions associated with the API.

If you are incorporating Hoover's data into an application for resale or an enterprise application for internal use, pleast contact Jeffrey Gleason:
Jeffrey Gleason
Business Development Manager
Hoover's, Inc.
Phone: 800.486.8666 ext. 44760
Email: jgleason@hoovers.com

Is that time again!

We are releasing new functionality on our Hoover's API. This release will occur on Thursday, November 12, between 5pm and 8pm. During this time, you may experience intermittent outages. There is no action required on your part as a consumer of the Hoover's API.

Enhancements:

-New Web service FindCompetitorsByCompanyId. This new service will provide a list of competitors for a given company.

 -HitOffset only allows from 1 to 10,000. Anything over 10,000 returns a SOAP Fault instead of a timeout error.

Bug Fixes:
-If a DUNS (instead of the HCID) was passed in to GetCompanyDetail, the URLs, Top Executives and Fax Number would not return. Fixed.

 -When enumerations were added for orderBy and sortDirection, we no longer allowed blanks for these two elements. We want to have the API be robust so we protect against invalid/blank values and ignore them

 -In FindCompanyByKeyword - if a multiple word company was sent, the return value was generally wrong as the words where consider independent and not related. Keywords are now wrapped to better identified matches.

-When an 8 digit SIC code was passed in web service AdvancedCompanySearch , The service would not return companies that had that 8 digit SIC code. This issue has been fixed.

Today we made several updates to HAPI that may require you to update your application in order for it to work with our new release. Please see the release notes and documentation for details. We appreciate your patience during HAPI’s beta period and hope that you will continue to ask questions and give us feedback. 

Today’s a big day at Hoover’s. We opened up our invitation-only beta to more developers. We also fixed some defects and added the remaining service operations, which means you now can access people information through HAPI. For details, check out the documentation and the release notes in the announcements section of the forum.

With this release comes a brand new development environment, enabling us to increase the number of beta developers. We want to make sure HAPI is stable and reliable; but keep in mind, we are in beta. While you can request a “Development API” key, it will not be activated unless you are a beta participant. Please continue to be patient with us as we ramp up during beta and add more users.

Most importantly, we want to hear from you. As you begin developing your applications, please let us know how development is going and if you come across any issues.  

If you are accustomed to building highly targeted lists of companies you should pay close attention; Hoover’s advanced company search allows you the same functionality that is found on the Hoover’s Build A List tool. For more information, please see the forum for the release note.

It has been an exciting time at The Hoov. We have three more services that will be released in the coming weeks.

Stay tuned for more information.

Today Hoover's introduced two queries into our beta program; Find Company By Keyword and Get Company Detail. Over the next three weeks, several more will be introduced.

So what does it mean to have an API beta program? For us, it is about understanding the expectations of our partners. Initially this is a controlled release as we work to ensure the scalability of our infrastructure and verify the documentation and examples are complete and accurate.

We encourage you to register for an account and read the documentation. While you may request an API key, they are not active until you are contacted directly by Jeff (he will contact you, he's a great guy).

We expect the beta to be brief, please be patient with us during this period. In the meantime, feel free to post questions to the Forums. Most of the API specific announcements will be made there.

I suppose this blog should start out as any story should, at the beginning. The question is then, where is the beginning? For our purposes, it is May 2007. I had been with Hoovers for about a month when I noticed a small noise. It sounded a little like this:

“We are here! We are here! We are here!”

Not really knowing who “we” were or where “here” is, I did what product managers do; I asked if sales and marketing heard anything.

As it turns out, several people had. They were pretty reticent towards acknowledging this at first, no doubt afraid of succumbing to the hype of web services. One of them suggested to me that I simply ignore the sound. “If you put on your headphones, you don’t even notice it.” So I tried it...

“We are here! We are here! We are here!” 

The sound got louder and louder. It was reaching a crescendo! Finally, I sought out the oracle (my boss) who asked me “Did you bother to ask who they are or what they want?”

Smith - “Who are you? What do you want?”

“We are your customers. We are your partners. We are DEVELOPERS. We want API’s!”

Smith - “Right...Who is this REALLY?”

The developers were patient. They sent me here and there, and there and here. Along the way I met a few new friends. And finally we had an API to share.

Pleased with myself, I sat back and enjoyed all the new things that my friends – the customers and partners – created. Until one day, the voices came back.

“We want more. We want more. We want more!”
 

To be continued…