Two Years of API Evangelism

by Kin Lane on 07/11/2012

I started my research on the API industry two years ago this month. In July 2010 I was looking for the next step, and thought the API space might be it, but I wanted to do my homework before I made the switch. So I spent a month studying where the API space was, and where it was going.

I saw that web APIs had found its roots in sales and e-commerce with API pioneers like Salesforce, Amazon and eBay. Then quickly gained momentum with social APIs like Delicious and Flickr, then Twitter and Facebook. But social was still more hobby than business, and it wasn’t until Amazon started deploying storage and compute infrastructure using web APIs, is when it got real.

In summer of 2010 I couldn’t see anything but mobile. Understanding the importance of APIs when it comes to mobile app development, I knew that APIs would play a significant role in the future. But what role could I play? How could I contribute?

There were plenty of extremely smart RESTful pundits or RESTafarians as Mike says. I was capable of playing here, but saw an area I could focus on, and that was the business of APIs. Successful APIs aren’t just technical, there are a lot to consider on the business and marketing side of things.

So in August 2010 I bought apievangelist.com, then by October I was blogging about my research in the space. Two years later I’m still blogging about the business of APIs and monitoring the space. But I’m adding two new domains to my network:

API Voice - A blog about the politics of APIs. Issues that face API owners and developers while trying to develop and manage API ecosystems
The API Stack - A listing of top APIs, ranked using an algorthm I’m evolving, that helps me discover new and identify strong and emerging APIs--as well as APIs that aren’t fully delivering

As I’m finding more time to focus on the space you will find my coverage of the business of APIs on API Evangelist, the politics of APIs on API Voice, and a view into how I rank and monitor APIs at The API Stack.

I hope you find some value in my research in the space. I know I learn a lot, every day.