For those developers who are interested in some of what Google has to offer, you now have the chance to utilize some of their upcoming product's APIs for your own use.
Google's Code Labs is a website in which all of Google's early products can be found, and it is available now, and will feature two sets of APIs. One will be features currently still in the Labs, and require more testing and modification, and the others will be listed as 'Lab Graduates', obviously meaning they are ready for release. There are currently some interesting products available for use, such as Desktop and Feedburner APIs, both yet to graduate from the Labs. In order for products to 'graduate' from the Labs, they have to undergo rigorous testing against current standards, and will each have a dedicated engineering team.
Director of Google Product Developing Tom Stocky has posted the following on Google's blog:
For these graduates, we're increasing our commitment with published deprecation policies and other critical support services. The Visualization API terms, Contacts Data API terms, and Picasa Web Albums Data API terms include good examples of transparent deprecation policies. They state that we'll support each version for at least 3 years from when it's deprecated or a newer version is introduced. We're working to get policies posted for the other graduates as well, though the time period may vary a bit from product to product. It will be 3 years for most, but it might be less for some. The AdWords API, for example, has a policy of supporting old versions for 4 months.
Of course, even established products need a way to experiment with new features. With that in mind, some products will have features labeled "experimental" that could change (or even be removed) at any time, while the rest of the API is covered by a deprecation policy with long-term support.
Google was also keen to mention that current, stable products also require updates from time to time, so some features with them will be listed as 'Experimental'. You can find Google's announcement of the website here.
So again, for those interested, visit the above link and be sure to let us know how it goes.
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