We’re excited to pull back the kimono on what we’ve been building here at Cloudsnap. First off, we have an unhealthy love for APIs. We also love to build new things. In all of our years of experience in using APIs to build new applications or create integrations with services like Salesforce.com, we’ve used countless SDKs, libraries and tools to get the job done.

However, as a developer you still have to deal with varying types of authentication, never-ending documentation, data formats and all the various quirks and surprises some of these APIs can throw at you. With Cloudsnap, we’ve built a platform to give you an enjoyable API integration experience.

What is Cloudsnap?

Cloudsnap allows you to build and extend software applications with functionality from 3rd party services.

Our platform allows you to spend less time adding integrations or writing “glue code” and more time focusing on your own features and value you offer to your customers. These integrations are features that your customers are demanding and we want to make it easy for you to provide them. Building custom functionality that sends leads to Salesforce or retrieves invoices from Freshbooks has never been so easy.

We turn integration with 3rd party services into a single API with features such as advanced querying, seamless authentication, auto-scaling and developer analytics for eight 3rd party services and counting.

Growing Service Library

We have already released support for Salesforce, Evernote, Basecamp, Highrise, Campfire, Eventbrite, Mailchimp and Github and are about to release another set of services that will give you even more apps to connect to.

How it Works

Join us in the beta

We are currently admitting people on a rolling basis over the next few weeks. Sign up below, and we will get you setup!

You can follow us @cloudsnap on Twitter for updates regarding new service support and the beta.

First things first: we love Werewolf (here are the rules, here is the card game).

Second: we love node.js, hackathons, and not sleeping.

So, it’s only natural that once we heard about Node Knockout, a 48-hour hackathon using node.js, the entire team jumps for joy at the opportunity. Hackathons are a great way to take a second, step back, and have fun.

When you’re working on one product, all the time, there are just certain things you can’t do. If you’re a designer, maybe you really want to make crappy sketches of characters, but they just don’t fit your products look and feel. If you’re a developer, maybe you really want to mess around with socket.io for real time data, but you’re not at a point where you can implement it.

This is where hackathons come in, and this is where imavillager.com was born. While we didn’t finish the product completely within the 48-hours, we got it to a usable state (sort of) for judging and playing internally, and even played a few games ourselves for fun. Overall, it was a great time. We went through a lot of coffee and more pistachios, and ended with a project that we all had a great time building.

Watch the video

We are happy to announce that we are giving away two chances to win a ticket to the Defrag 2012 Conference! We’ll be there because we live data and technology. If you do too, this will be a great chance for you to meet some of the leading pioneers in internet data and knowledge from around the world.

Oh, and did we mention each ticket also comes with a Blur ticket as well? Yeah, that’s a whole lot of tech in a week… for free. You just have to get yourself to Broomfield, whether it’s by car, airplane, or hyperloop.

Here’s all you have to do:

1. Sign up for our newsletter below

Don’t worry. We won’t spam you, or share your email address with anyone. All updates will be new, timely, and relevant to Cloudsnap.

2. Tweet us with the web service you’d like to integrate with using the following template:

"Hi @Cloudsnap! I want to integrate with [web app] and go to #defrag12! http://bit.ly/RZ83au"

3. Sit back and wait! We will randomly select and announce the winners of the two free tickets on October 30th, 2012.

And, if you have any questions, or as usual, just want to say hi, shoot me an email.

Thanks and good luck!

Dreamforce 2012 is upon us and we want to give you a few last minute tips for surviving Dreamforce as a developer. While the majority of Dreamforce attendees are not developers, there is still plenty to geek out over. Salesforce and Heroku have come a long way in evolving the developer-centric parts of Dreamforce including a lot of sessions for every skill level so you can find new things to learn about whether you’re completely new to the platform or have been hacking on it for years.

Developer Sessions

Most of the sessions will be recorded for later viewing so if you find yourself unable to get into a session or are trying to decide between more than one at the same time, don’t worry! The only sessions that are not recorded are any of the product roadmap sessions so if you’re interested in learning about what is to come, definitely make sure you attend these.

DevZone

The DevZone is a great way to learn more about companies and technology like Heroku, Twilio and Sendgrid that will help you to build amazing web and mobile apps on top of the Force.com platform. Most of the developer sessions tend to be in or around the DevZone so you will get to know it very well.

Don’t be shy

Participate in the mini-hack challenges. Check them out and win prizes from Salesforce and partners like Amazon Web Services and New Relic. Our team is a big fan of hackathons so we’ll definitely be giving them a go as well.

Don’t only talk to other developers. While most of the attendees at Dreamforce at users and admins, it will really help you to get a better perspective on how people truly use Salesforce and how it fits into their day to day business. If you’re one of the highly sought after developers or admins looking for a job right now, you might just find one that is the perfect fit for you.

Find and attend the various after-parties. There A LOT of after-parties that take place at Dreamforce. You will be able to meet a lot of people and have a good time with some musical guests. These are a great way to meet people you can follow up with after the conference.

Attend the Salesforce Tweetup on Tuesday night to meet other Twitter users that live and breathe all things Salesforce. Most of the people that I’ve met through the Tweetups in the past have become good friends of mine that I speak to often and look forward to seeing in person each year.

Some People You Should Follow on Twitter

Jason Venable Follow @tehnrd
Michael Farrington Follow @michaelforce
Joe Ferraro Follow @joeferraro
Scott Hemmeter Follow @hemmeter
Brandy Colmer Follow @forcedotmom
David Schach Follow @dscach
Joshua Hoskins Follow @jhoskins
Fraser Suyetsugu Follow @frasuy
Mike Leach Follow @dlog
Jared Miller Follow @jaredemiller
Alex Sutherland Follow @apexsutherland
Ian Swinson Follow @iswinson
Dave Carroll Follow @dcarroll

DF Guide by Geopointe

If you’re looking for a fast way to find Dreamforce parties, places or activities, be sure to keep Geopointe‘s DF Guide handy on your mobile device so you don’t miss out on any of the action!

Come meet us! Developer Dinner Meetup

We love to meet other developers so if you’re new to Dreamforce or even the Force.com platform, the Cloudsnap team will be there all week. We’d love to grab some caffeine or a drink with you. We’ll also be organizing a small developer dinner meetup during the week so be sure to send us a tweet (@cloudsnap) if you’re interested in joining us for that.

Today we’re delighted to announce that Kevin Jones has joined the Cloudsnap team. He will be focusing on transforming the experience of integration from something that companies dread to something that they can look forward to.

With our goal of making integration available to everyone, the user experience is extremely important to us. Everything you see, touch and experience within Cloudsnap needs to help guide you to the more connected business that you desire. Kevin is a very exciting addition to the team to help make ensure this is the case.

Kevin comes to us from KPS3, a full service digital agency here in Reno, where he served as their art director. However, this is not the first time we’ve worked with Kevin. Chris and I worked with Kevin last year on Colorstache, a color search tool for Evernote, that was a finalist in the Evernote Developer Competition in 2011. Kevin is one of the best designers and front-end developers we’ve ever worked with and we’re excited to finally have him on the team!

For more info on Kevin, you can find him on Dribbble or Linkedin.