Freemium API Tools Can Drive Experimentation And Innovation

by on 02/26/2013

I’m a firm believer in the power of the freemium model when it comes to APIs. Nothing is as it seems when you are deploying managing or consuming APIs. You have to have room to innovate and iterate without signing contracts or paying too much, before you find exactly the right integration or deployment that works. This freemium approach to APIs is one of the biggest reasons I’ve been supporting 3Scale since early days of API Evangelist. 3Scale was the original API service provider to offer a truly freemium tier for anyone wanting to deploy an API, and remains passionate about this to this day. During the API Strategy & Practice conference in NYC last week, I had the pleasure of meeting the SmartBear team, who share a similar perspective of the space, resulting in them launching a new suite of free tools that will help you develop, test and monitor while building API driven software. SmartBear has published four new free tools for testing and development: SoapUI is a free and open source cross-platform Functional Testing solution. With an easy-to-use graphical interface, SoapUI allows you to easily and rapidly create and execute automated functional, regression, compliance, and load tests.... read more.

Tags: smartbear, Tools

The BaaS Reality TV Show Panel at APIStrat

by on 02/25/2013

One of the lively discussions at the API Strategy & Practice conference in NYC last week was the backend as a service (BaaS) panel I moderated towards the end of the first day. We brought together Ilya Sukhar (@ilyasu) of Parse, Morgan Bickle (@morganbickle) of Kinvey, Marc Weil (@marcweil) of Cloudmine, Miko Matasumura (@mikojava) of Kii, Ty Amell (@tyamell) of StackMob James Tamplin (@jamestamplin) of Firebase to talk about the fast growing BaaS space. I kicked things off with some pretty standard stuff, by having each person introduce themselves and explain what they do. Next I asked them to explain what differentiates themselves from the other folks on the couch. After that, things started heating up when I brought up a discussion about BaaS pricing, from an earlier online discussion about the mertits of user, feature or pricing base upon number of API calls. The common approach is user or api based pricing, with Stackmob focused on feature based BaaS pricing. BaaS panel is actually really really interesting. Great line up.... read more.

Tags: BaaS, BaaS, CloudMine, Firebase, Kii, Kinvey, parse

Get A List Of All Classes At UC Berkeley With API Call

by on 02/25/2013

I see a lot of dead simple, yet meaningful uses of APIs come across my desk (I don’t have a desk, why do I keep saying this? ) each day. One I saw today is something every school, whether K-12, college or university should have. Using the UC Berkeley API, you can get a list of all departments: _curl -v -X GET "https://apis-dev. berkeley. edu/cxf/asws/department? departmentCode=a&app_id=309fe68e&app_key=51b9d67dc4f0501eed763822a641b17b"_ Then with the proper department code you can pull a list of classes: _curl -v -X GET "https://apis-dev. berkeley. edu/cxf/asws/classoffering? departmentCode=ARCH&app_id=your-id&app_key=your-key"_ With the proper keys, anyone can easily pull relevant UC Berkeley department and class data to use in website or app, or even populate a Google Spreadsheet for other purposes. The UC Berkeley API Management Portal is brand new, I’m still working on separate story regarding their approach, but I wanted to talk about how good it is to see such straightforward, valuable uses of an API at a leading university. This simple example is something you should be able to do by default at all schools across the country.... read more.

Tags: Classes, College, K-12, UC Berkeley, University

Exactly the API Strategy & Practice Conference I Envisioned

by on 02/25/2013

Its the Monday morning after the API Strategy & Practice Conference. The conference went off without a hitch, and was exactly the conference I envisioned when 3Scale first contacted me seven months ago about the idea of putting on the event.  In July of 2012 Steve Willmott the CEO and founder of 3Scale sent me an email stating:. we're thinking of finally getting round to organizing an API focused event (conference) which tries to help spread knowledge about API, promote good practice and broaden the API tent beyond what it is today. The aim would be an event which combined both "business and practice" - meaning one element which tackles critical topics such as business models, strategy, success stories etc. and another which is about "what can be done with APIs" and "how to make it happen technically". Closing with: The final important thing is we'd like it to be a very open event - with a range of supporters, speakers and attendees and - while vendors might sponsor - it wouldn't be a "vendor" event. To which I responded with: Sounds like a great idea to me. I'm in, and willing to help in any way I can. Of course I would be in.... read more.

Tags: 3Scale, API Strategy & Practice, Conference, Event

Salesforce Plans to Move Code Share to Github

by on 02/13/2013

Salesforce has a pretty cool Code Share area within the DeveloperForce ecosystem, which allows developers to share code snippets with the rest of the community. Its a pretty cool way for anyone to share their techniques as code samples in a variety of languages, then letting the community vet the code, fork larger projects, and collaborate to improve the code for the greater good. Acknowledging that they don't have the internal resources to fully support the process, Salesforce has halted code samples submission, announcing plans to migrate the Code Sharing program to Github. Github is already the largest code sharing platform, providing social tools that developers are used to. Salesforce's publiclackowledgement that they don't have the internal resources to operate, the fact they identify the importance of such a program, and the decision to migrate to Github are all very savvy moves by the API pioneer. Github is one of the most important platforms you can use to support your API.... read more.

Tags: Code LIbraries, Code Samples, GitHub, SalesForce

Google Launches HTML Game Development Course with Udacity

by on 02/13/2013

Google is using the online learning platform Udacity to teach developers about game development. The new HTML Game Development course (CS255), is the online classroom for the programming class, coupled with a series of study groups hosted at Google's San Francisco office and a contest providing developers an incentive to complete the class. Google is kicking off the course with a live session, with Udacity CEO Sebastian Thrun on Thursday, February 14th at 10:30 AM and the class will be taught by Colt McAnlis (Developer Advocate, Chrome Developer Relations), Peter Lubbers(Program Manager, Chrome Developer Relations), and Sean Bennett (Architect, Udacity). The HTML Game Development course from Google is an interesting approach to developer education by providing an online course bundled with in-person or streamed workshops and study groups, bundled with a contest to help motivate students.... read more.

Tags: Courses, Developer, Google, HTML, Training, Udacity

AWS API Reference Architecture

by on 02/13/2013

I was checking out the updates to the AWS Reference Architecture, where they provide blueprints for how you can use AWS. In this version AWS provides an e-commerce architecture reference--providing a system overview, a detailed architectural diagram, and a list of the AWS services used in the architectural approach. The AWS e-commerce architecture reference provides three separate areas: Web Frontend - This is a reference architecture for the web frontend of an e-commerce site. It makes use of Route 53, CloudFront, Elastic Beanstalk, S3, ElastiCache, DynamoDB and CloudSearch Checkout Pipeline - This is a reference architecture for a secure and highly available checkout pipeline service for an e-commerce site. It uses the Virtual Private Cloud, the Simple Workflow Service, Elastic Beanstalk, the Relational Database Service, and the Simple Email Service Marketing & Recommendations Service - This is a reference architecture for a marketing and recommendation service for an e-commerce site.... read more.

Tags: Architecture, AWS, Building Blocks, Reference, Resources

Stripe Adds Jquery Tools To Its API Embed Strategy

by on 02/13/2013

The payment API provider Stripe released a jQuery payment tool, a general purpose library for building credit card forms, validating input, and formatting numbers. The library was developed to support Checkout, Stripe's embeddable checkout widget. Simple, but extremely useful libraries like this can go a long way to introduce developers to your APIs and put valuable tools into their toolbox, that will help them be successful.  Something that can go a long way in establishing a loyalty between you and your developer community.... read more.

Tags: Credit Card, JQuery, Payment

Public Library Operations Machine-Readable By Default

by on 02/12/2013

Palo Alto has opened up city data, including operational data about the Palo Alto City Library. Using the Palo Alto City open data portal you can access machine-readable data sets about various aspects of library operations including visitor count, checkouts by type of materia, information and circulation services, programs attendance, website visitors count and how library funds are spent. The Palo Alto open data portal provides widgets with data grids and charts derived from data. But you can also request data sets and access data via the City of Palo Alto's API. The city hopes that it will increase community engagement by making data open and machine readable by default. The city is looking to throw hackathons that will develop solutions, and increase public engagement in city government, and ultimately save money and enhance city services.... read more.

Tags: City Government, Open Data, Palo Alto

Facebook Launches a New Video Channel for Developers

by on 02/12/2013

Facebook launched a new video channel last week, dedicated to keeping developers up to date on the latest news, tutorials, speaking sessions from the Facebook developer ecosystem. Facebook is going to provide content for web and mobile developers, with attention in other specialty areas like gaming and information for publishers. The first edition of the channel will be recorded live on February 19th, with Director of Product Doug Purdy, with the top 3 things every mobile developer needs to know. I'm adding a video channel to my list of API building blocks. I don't think you have to be a Facebook before you have your own channel.... read more.

Tags: Building Blocks, Facebook, Video


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