Launchpad Online for developers: Getting Started with Google APIs

November 19, 2014


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Google APIs give you the power to build rich integrations with our most popular applications, including Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail, Google Drive and more. If you are new to our developer features, we want to give you a quick jumpstart on how to use them effectively and build amazing things.

As you saw last week, we’re excited to partner with the Startup Launch team to create the “Launchpad Online”, a new video series for a global audience that joins their cadre which already includes the established “Root Access” and “How I:” series, as well as a “Global Spotlight” series on some of the startups that have benefitted from the Startup Launch program. This new series focuses on developers who are beginners to one or more Google APIs. Each episode helps get new users off the ground with the basics, shows experienced developers more advanced techniques, or introduces new API features, all in as few lines of code as possible.

The series assumes you have some experience developing software and are comfortable using languages like Javascript and Python. Be inspired by a short working example that you can drop into your own app and customize as desired, letting you “take off” with that great idea. Hopefully you had a chance to view our intro video last week and are ready for more!

Once you’ve got your developers ready to get started, learn how to use the Google Developers Console to set up a project (see video to the right), and walk through common security code required for your app to access Google APIs. When you’ve got this “foundation” under your belt, you’ll be ready to build your first app… listing your files on Google Drive. You’ll learn something new and see some code that makes it happen in each future episode… we look forward to having you join us soon on Launchpad Online!

Posted by Wesley Chun, Developer Advocate, Google

+Wesley Chun (@wescpy) is an engineer, author of the bestselling Core Python books, and a Developer Advocate at Google, specializing in Google Drive, Google Apps Script, Gmail, Google Apps, cloud computing, developer training, and academia. He loves traveling worldwide to meet Google users everywhere, whether at a developers conference, user group meeting, or on a university campus!