JSON-C YouTube API

Developer's Guide: JSON-C / JavaScript - YouTube APIs and Tools - Google Code

YouTube site has not only a very rich content,
but also a very powerful set of APIs!

Besides very popular and standardized "ATOM" (XML) REST API,
there are also JSON and JSON-C ("C" stands for "Compact", most likely).
While there is no much "talk" about "JSON-C" to be found by googling,
the format does appear to be much more efficient for storage: good engineering, YouTube!

In addition to much smaller size (= less time to process), it makes programming simpler!

Comparing JSON and JSON-C

JSON-C feeds can exclude duplicate, irrelevant or easily calculated values.

do not preserve XML namespaces or schema information

minimize the number of JSON objects that are created in favor of simple properties

---

Atom (XML):
<category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/categories.cat'
  term='Sports' label='Sports'/>
<category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='dog'/>
<category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='catch'/>

<category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='frisbee'/>
...
<media:group>
  <media:category label='Sports'
    scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/categories.cat'>Sports</media:category>
  <media:keywords>dog, catch, frisbee</media:keywords>
  ...

<media:group>
JSON:
"category":[
  {"scheme":"http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/categories.cat",
   "term":"Sports", "label":"Sports"},
  {"scheme":"http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat", "term":"dog"},
  {"scheme":"http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat", "term":"catch"},
  {"scheme":"http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat", "term":"frisbee"}
],
"media$group": {
  "media$category":[{"$t":"Sports", "label":"Sports",
    "scheme":"http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/categories.cat"],
  "media$keywords":{"$t":"dog, catch, frisbee"}
}
JSON-C:
"category":"Sports",
"tags":["dog", "catch", "frisbee"]

---