MindMeister Launches MeisterAPI

MindMeister – a popular mind mapping tool for the web – released an API yesterday which allows developers of web and desktop applications to access and modify mind maps on MindMeister:

When designing our API we’ve stuck closely to the already pretty established structure and features of common web REST APIs such as the ones of Flickr and Remember the Milk, so whoever has used those before should have no problem with the meisterAPI.

Two demo mashups are already available as Yahoo! Pipes: New York Times and Public Hot through Youtube. The former finds mind maps which contain keywords taken from the current homepage of the New York Times, the later lists videos from YouTube based on the most popular topics at MindMeister. Mind maps are actionable data, so it is reasonable to expect a few cool tools built around their API soon.

MindMeister is one of the most successful German sites which launched this year (with almost 4,000 bookmarks at del.icio.us it actually currently has the lead in our charts of popular German sites)

It basically brings all the features you might expect from a desktop based mind mapping tool like MindManager or open sourced Freemind (intuitive interface, drag and drop, copy and paste, import and export in various formats, revision control) to the web, but also adds web-only goodies like simultaneous collaborative editing of mindmaps, sharing, voting and tagging of public mindmaps, instant Skype calls to fellow mind mappers or integration of maps on a website or blog.

The basic version is free, paid plans let you create an unlimited number of mindmaps, add SSL encryption and remove the adds.

Company blog: Blog

(This article originally was written for blognation Germany. Since blognation is gone I have reposted it here)