WASHINGTON, D.C. — GOSO, a social media and marketing suite tailored for auto dealers, has rolled out an application programming interface that provides Web developers with a standardized process to access dealer inventories and other data.

GOSO officials explained that the dealer industry has historically been "very closed" when it comes to this sort of thing. This has somewhat limited dealers to only hire creative advertising agencies or Web development firms from a small group of vendors.

Essentially, the GOSO API is designed to lower the entry barrier. The company said that this year it will "welcome innovation" with participating dealers.

Looking at the origins of the program, the company noted that its founder, Adam Boalt, was the winner in the inaugural government technology innovation contest in Washington, D.C.

As he developed the application for the contest, the majority of his time was spent normalizing data. So, his first order of business when founding GOSO was to streamline this information.

Boalt turned to former Pfizer application developer Herb Pinder to head up this process.

"The GOSO API makes dealer vehicle data readily available to developers by providing a superset of the functionality in a centralized location," Pinder pointed out.

The GOSO platform — which officials said integrates with any dealership management system — is designed to capture real-time inventory as well as various external data sources. These can sources can include VIN decoding, vehicle history, stock photographs and video, awards, accolades and safety ratings.

"Just about anything I could possibly need for vehicles on the lot is available through GOSO's API," explained Jason Tracy of Fresh Input, which was one of first companies to adopt the GOSO API. Tracy utilizes GOSO for the Marc Heitz Auto Group.

"I can even access Carfax information along with all of the other available data, under one roof — it's a one-stop shop," Tracy concluded.