Most startups today leverage commercial SaaS services. When it comes to choosing an API, there are many choices but I tend to try the ones that end in “.io” first. For example, when looking at weather forecast APIs, I skipped over familiar names like Yahoo and Weather Channel and went straight for Forecast.io. Better service APIs tend to have domains ending in “.io” and they have straightforward APIs, solid documentation, libraries in your favorite language and simple freemium plans. All of this usually allows you you decide within minutes whether this service will work for you. Check out my super short tutorial on using forecast.io:

https://github.com/tuesy/forecast_io_tutorial