Question about Query Return Results

[Kurt]

I am using the following query to try and list startup Companies in
Houston. I have tried using the following query to produce that list:

http://api.crunchbase.com/v/1/search.js?query=houston

I have a few questions related to this:
-----------------------------------------------------
1) I see the return results include all object types (ie. People/
Companies/etc) with the word Houston somewhere in the results
returned, but don't return any results about the city that those
entities are based in. Is there any way to structure the query to
just return Companies ("namespace": "company") that are based in
Houston ("city?": "Houston?") ?
2) Does anyone know how I can write the query to return all results
and not just the first 10?
3) Does anyone know how to make this work with Yahoo Pipes? (I am a
noob/non-programmer)
Here is a link to my Yahoo Pipe: http://pipes.yahoo.com/startuphouston/1caf3b61a7d1eece074b1e302b9f66a9

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!
Kurt
StartupHouston.com

[Kurt]

Also, if anyone could tell me how to get that same query to return
location results, so I can plot Houston startups out on a Google Map,
I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks Again.

Kurt
StartupHouston.com

[Kurt]

Any thoughts on my query question? Anyone?

On Oct 14, 8:46 pm, Kurt <kurtsto...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Kimball]

See the search documentation at http://groups.google.com/group/crunchbase-api/web/api-v1-documentation.
For your purposes, you could use a combination of the page parameter
on the 'houston' query and then on each result, doing a permalink
query for more detailed information. We'll get to supporting a more
robust system, perhaps better exposing advanced searches in the
future.

Kimball

[Kurt]

Kimball,

Thanks for responding. I am currently using that approach on my Yahoo
Pipe. See here: http://pipes.yahoo.com/startuphouston/1caf3b61a7d1eece074b1e302b9f66a9

Here is what my pipe does:
-----------------------------------------
1) It does a query of the CrunchBase API like so:
http://api.crunchbase.com/v/1/search.js?query=houston
2) Then I have it take a look at the Total number of results and
divide by 10 to derive the number of pages to call. (currently it
returns 68 entities)
3) It then recurses through each of the pages and pulls out the
permalink to each entity and loops through each, pulling out all the
JSON data
4) It then filters the results based on whether the entity is a
Company or not (this leaves me with 35 entities)
5) Yahoo Pipes then lets me output this list as a map, a list, a
rotating image display, and more.

However, I am running into some problems.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
- First, my query only currently returns a total of 35 Houston
Companies and I can see from the CrunchBase Company Search that there
are closer to 80
(see here: http://www.crunchbase.com/maps/search?range=20&geo=houston%2C+tx
)
- Querying for Houston through the API returns all kinds of entities
and I have no idea which fields it is querying within CrunchBase (all
of them?), therefore I don't know if I am using the best approach or
not

Here are my questions:
----------------------------------
- Why is the Crunchbase Companies Search returning so many more
Houston Companies than my query?
- Is it because TechCrunch has direct access to the
CrunchBase data and you are able to use more powerful SQL queries than
I am able to use in the API?
- Or is there some other way to structure my query through
the API that would be more effective?
- Would it be better to do a bunch of queries based on the zip codes
from the Houston area to get better results?


Any help or insight you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in Advance!

Kurt



On Oct 20, 12:46 pm, Kimball <kbigho...@gmail.com> wrote:
> See the search documentation athttp://groups.google.com/group/crunchbase-api/web/api-v1-documentation.

[Kimball]

I'll have to see what exactly our search solution (which needs to be
replaced, honestly) indexes on, but one possible future solution is to
make this advanced search available over the API:
http://www.crunchbase.com/search/advanced/companies/96974. Thank you
for pointing this out, we'll keep this problem on file for future API
development. In the short term, I can see about tweaking our search
function.

Kimball

--
One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.
--Oogway

[Kurt]

Thanks Kimball, I appreciate it. StartupHouston.com is trying to help
grow Houston's startup community by promoting the companies there and
utilizing CrunchBase just seems a natural fit for helping to do that.
As soon as I know that we can produce good results, then we will start
heavily promoting CrunchBase on our blog.

In the meantime, I will try to use Yahoo Pipes' page scraping
functionality to get info on the companies that come up in the URL
that you provided to me. Thx again!

Again any other help you can provide on doing better queries through
the API (or otherwise) is much appreciated and will enable us to
heavily promote CrunchBase and get a lot more Houston startups and
Entrepreneurs registered into the database.

Best Rgds,

Kurt

[Kurt]

PS. Once I get this down for Houston using Yahoo Pipes, it will be
very easy for other blogs to easily replicate and reuse in other
cities.

Best Rgds,

Kurt

[Kurt]

OK, well, back to Square One here, because CrunchBase uses a
Robots.txt file that disallows scraping the page that you sent me, so
I can't scrape it with Yahoo Pipes.

Again, any info you can provide on better querying through the API is
much appreciated.

All the Best,

Kurt