Google has announced the availability of an Analytics Data Export API (beta) is now publicly available.

A long requested feature, the API will allow developers to enhance existing business applications or create entirely new standalone products. There are several ways the data can be used, from accessing Google Analytics (GA) from a mobile device like the Android or from a desktop.

The API (which is the same protocol for Google Calendar, Finance and Webmaster Tools) provides read-only access to all GA data. For JavaScript and Java programming languages, Google has provided client libraries to abstract and simplify the process of working with the data and is working on supporting more programming languages. Developers will be able to use any programming language in the meantime, though, to make requests directly to the API over HTTP and access the data in XML.