The APIs are language independent, however we actively support the following: C#, PHP, Java, VB.NET, Ruby, Python. You can find sample code here
Decibel uses GUIDs for all entities in our database. These IDs are meant to be completely unique. Decibel IDs are unique enough to use outside Decibel, and we're happy for Decibel IDs to be published. The one caveat is that the editorial staff may move information if they see that one person (or piece) is actually two items with the same name.
Decibel has a high level of detail, but that detail is not always needed, especially when the user is browsing lists and hasn't decided to zoom in. For that reason we've introduced the concept of Retrieval Depth, which ensures that the caller doesn't get "extra" information unless it's requested. Retrieval Depth is specified by an enumeration.
In order to save time and bandwidth, query results are paged. The QueryResult object comes back with all of the item IDs (and this could be a large number). However, only a page worth of items is constructed at any given time. The caller can then go to a particular page and request objects.
All of our images are in .JPG format. We currently store album art, but we are working on images for people, places and other entities in our database. Fo albums there is a 600*600 hi-res image and a 96*96 thumbnail.
