Most of the tooling and services I come across in the API space, are designed for developers. As I play with more services, and put tools to work, trying understand their role in the API space, some take a lot of work to figure out, while others are pretty clear--it will be these tools and services that the masses of business users adopt, as part of the API evolution that is occurring online currently.
There are just a handful of services out there right now, that I think are mainstream ready, and are something that the average business user of the web, should be playing with right now--here are three of them:
- Restlet - Deploy API from a Google Spreadsheet.
- Blockspring - Use APIs in a Google Spreadsheet.
- Form.io - Deploy an API as form, via Single Page App.
There are other services and tools out there that will help you deploy and consume APIs, but these stand out, because they help the average business user solve real world business problems they are facing, without needing to write code. They also anchor there solutions in existing tooling that are ubiquitous, and part of every day business operations--the spreadsheet and the form.
Developers might care about the technical details of APIs, and evangelists like me might be able to convince some of the average business users of the potential of APIs, but before we can bring the masses on-board, we will need the right tools. Restlet, Blockspring, and Form.io have the potential to be these tools, and help the "normals" become active participants in the API economy, but more importantly find the (API driven) solutions they need for the problems they face every day.
