{
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    "title" : "The API Briefing: FRED® and ALFRED® Serve Up a Buffet of Economic Data |Digital.gov",
    "description": "The API Briefing: FRED® and ALFRED® Serve Up a Buffet of Economic Data",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2014/11/26/the-api-briefing-fred-and-alfred-serve-up-a-buffet-of-economic-data/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"The API Briefing: FRED® and ALFRED® Serve Up a Buffet of Economic Data","summary" : "The federal government captures almost every economic data trend through several agencies. The Federal Reserve of St. Louis offers 238,000 economic trends through FRED® (Federal Reserve Economic Data). FRED® data can be accessed through the FRED® website or the FRED® mobile app (Android | Apple). FRED® data can","date" : "2014-11-26T11:10:15-04:00","date_modified" : "2025-01-27T19:42:55-05:00","authors" : {"bbrantley" : "Bill Brantley"},"topics" : {
        
            "application-programming-interface" : "Application programming interface",
            "software-engineering" : "Software engineering"
            },"branch" : "bc-archive-content-3",
      "filename" :"2014-11-26-the-api-briefing-fred-and-alfred-serve-up-a-buffet-of-economic-data.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2014/11/2014-11-26-the-api-briefing-fred-and-alfred-serve-up-a-buffet-of-economic-data.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2014/11/2014-11-26-the-api-briefing-fred-and-alfred-serve-up-a-buffet-of-economic-data.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2014/11/2014-11-26-the-api-briefing-fred-and-alfred-serve-up-a-buffet-of-economic-data.md","slug" : "the-api-briefing-fred-and-alfred-serve-up-a-buffet-of-economic-data","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2014/11/26/the-api-briefing-fred-and-alfred-serve-up-a-buffet-of-economic-data/","content" :"\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2014/11/250-x-390-FRED-home-android.jpg\"\n    alt=\"FRED app home screen\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\nThe federal government captures almost every economic data trend through several agencies. The Federal Reserve of St. Louis offers 238,000 economic trends through \u003ca href=\"http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/\"\u003eFRED® (Federal Reserve Economic Data)\u003c/a\u003e. FRED® data can be accessed through the FRED® website or the FRED® mobile app (\u003ca href=\"https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.stlouisfed.research.fred\"\u003eAndroid\u003c/a\u003e | \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fred-economic-data/id451715489\"\u003eApple\u003c/a\u003e). FRED® data can even be pulled into \u003ca href=\"http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred-addin/\"\u003eExcel through a free plugin\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDevelopers can take advantage of the vast data resources of FRED® and its cousin, ALFRED® (\u003ca href=\"http://alfred.stlouisfed.org/\"\u003eArchivaL Federal Reserve Economic Data\u003c/a\u003e). Developers \u003ca href=\"http://api.stlouisfed.org/docs/fred/\"\u003equery FRED® and ALFRED®\u003c/a\u003e by categories, release dates, economic series, sources, and tags, which provides several robust methods to pinpoint the exact economic data the user needs. The documentation is extensive and demonstrates how to retrieve the data in both \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML\"\u003eXML\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON\"\u003eJSON\u003c/a\u003e formats.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEspecially helpful to developers are the various \u003ca href=\"http://api.stlouisfed.org/docs/fred/#Toolkits\"\u003eAPI toolkits\u003c/a\u003e that FRED® offers. There are seven API toolkits written for the most common programming languages: C++, Common Lisp, Java, .NET, PHP, Python, and Ruby. The toolkits make accessing and parsing data easier for developers so that they can concentrate on other app features.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://geofred.stlouisfed.org/\"\u003eGeoFRED®\u003c/a\u003e presents the some of the economic data geographically. Users can register to create and save their maps. GeoFRED® does not appear to have its own API, and I could not determine if FRED® or ALFRED® offers location data. Mapping would be a great feature, but FRED® and ALFRED® offer an amazing amount of data to build many excellent apps.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2014/11/600-x-436-GEOFred-API.jpg\"\n    alt=\"600-x-436-GEOFred-API\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e*API – Application Programming Interface. How software programs and databases share data and functions with each other. Check out\u003c/em\u003e \u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2013/04/30/apis-in-government/\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eAPIs in Government\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e \u003cem\u003efor more information.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eEach week in “The API Briefing,” I will showcase government APIs and the latest API news and trends. Visit this blog every week to learn how government APIs are transforming government and improving government services for the American people. If you have ideas for a topic or have questions about APIs, please contact me via\u003c/em\u003e \u003ca href=\"mailto:William.Brantley@opm.gov\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eemail\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003cem\u003e.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDr. William A. Brantley\u003c/strong\u003e is the HRIS Branch Chief in the USDA’s Rural Development Human Resources Office. You can find out more about his work in this space at\u003c/em\u003e \u003ca href=\"http://billbrantley.com/\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eBillBrantley.com\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003cem\u003e. All opinions are his own and do not reflect the opinions of the USDA and GSA.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n"}
  ]
}