BaaS Provider Quickblox Offers Unlimited API Calls and Push Notifications

by on 02/26/2013

Backend as a Service (BaaS) provider QuickBlox announced new pricing plans, which includes a free tier up to 10GB in traffic and storage, with unlimited API calls and push notifications. The BaaS space is heating up with lots of discussion about whether you should charge developers by active user, features, storage or API call--with each provider being pretty vocal about where they stand. Quickblox is approach similar to StackMob, who refuses to charge based upon API call, atributing it to a sucess tax. But Quickblox is somewhat different, as they still charge for hard costs like bandwidth and storage--Stackmob only charges by feature. I'm trying to understand all the approaches to BaaS pricing, which was also a panel discussion last week at API Strategy & Practice between Parse, Stackmob, Kinvey, Kii, Cloudmine and Firebase.... read more.

Tags: API Evangelist, BaaS, QuickbBlox, StackMob

API Transparency Report as Essential Building Block

by on 02/26/2013

After reading about Google’s release of their transparency report last month, I decided I would be addding API transparency reports to my list of essential building blocks for API owners. Since I wrote that, I’ve had a great post from EFF also stating that its time for transparency reports to become the new normal.  Where the EFF outlines the illness in our current approach: When you use the Internet, you entrust your thoughts, experiences, photos, and location data to intermediaries — companies like AT&T, Google, and Facebook. But when the government requests that data, users are usually left in the dark. In the United States, companies are not required by law to alert their users when they receive a government request for their data, and in some circumstances, they are explicitly prohibited from doing so. So it is up to us, the users to join organizations like the EFF and let all online service providers understand the importance of transparency reports becoming default operating procedure. Currently, we are only seeing transparency reports from providers like Google, DropBox, LinkedIn, Twitter and a handful of other service providers.... read more.

Tags: API Voice

Government and Vendor Data Access Via My Platform OAuth

by on 02/26/2013

I’m working through some thoughts from API Strategy & Practice, around OAuth. I just wrote a post asking which of the three OAuth legs is most important? As I work through these thoughts, I’m also working through another post about platform transparency reports becoming default. As a venn diagram between security, privacy and transparency emerges in my mind, I can’t help but wonder why two important areas of resource access via popular platforms are not housed under the OAuth roof. When we think of OAuth we consider the three legs being server, client and user, with the client often being a developer. Seems to me there are two other clients: Government - Should government requests for information reside within the realm of my OAuth. When I login to my Twitter, visit settings > apps, I should see any government requests for information with each agency and the information requested. Right? Vendor or Partner - A company should be required to disclose where any personally identifiable information is shared.  Providing me access into where my infformation is sold or shared within a company and its relationships. I’m not looking to further muddy the OAuth conversation.... read more.

Tags: API Voice

Which Of The Three OAuth Legs Is The Most Important?

by on 02/26/2013

We closed up the API Strategy & Practice Conference (#APIstrat) last friday with a panel called APIs, Platforms and Ecosystem, where I moderated a healthy discussion with Tyler Stalder (@tylerstalder) of Singly, Seth Blank (@AntiFreeze) of YourTrove, Asif Rahman (@asifrahman) of Newscred, Orian Marx (@orian) of App. net, Travis Wallis (@traviswallis) of PeopleBrowsr around the very broad spectrum of APIs, platforms and the concept of ecosystems. One of the questions I asked the group was, which of the three OAuth Legs is the most important?   To provide a quick primer for the portion of my audience that aren’t OAuth geeks: OAuth is an open standard for authorization that provides a method for clients to access server resources on behalf of a resource owner Ok, what does that mean? Think Twitter. Twitter is server. You are the owner of your tweet resources. When you authenticate anywhere using your Twitter ID, that website or app uses OAuth to get access to your tweets, via the Twitter platform.... read more.

Tags: API Evangelist, Apistrat, App.net, Ecosystem, NewsCred, OAuth, peoplebrowsr, Singly, YourTrove

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: API Evangelist, 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: API Evangelist, BaaS, BaaS, CloudMine, Firebase, Kii, Kinvey, parse

At What Point Should Twitter Be Considered An Essential Service?

by on 02/25/2013

I’m still processing a lot of my research last summer into the Business of Twitters API. My goal is to explore all aspects of what I feel is one of the single most important API platforms around today. I wanted to explore thoughts on when Twitter should be considered an essential service or utility. You know, like water, electricity and phone. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not advocating for yet more government, but exploring potential solutions to some of the problems we face when depending on the Twitter. I wanted to understand more about at what point does a product or service, moves beyond a want, and enters into the need category. When does government tend to step in and make sure products continue being made and ensuring that some services are too essential to stop providing under any circumstances. To begin, I wanted to understand what a public utility was. According to Answers. com, a public utility is: A private business organization, subject to governmental regulation, that provides an essential commodity or service, such as water, electricity, transportation, or communication, to the public. Ok.... read more.

Tags: API Voice

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: API Evangelist, Classes, College, K-12, UC Berkeley, University

Are We Eliminating The Open From the Internet By Using APIs?

by on 02/25/2013

Don’t get me wrong. I love what I do. I religiously advocate for the usage of APIs across ALL aspects of our business and personal lives, while also making default throughout government operations. Most of the time I’m confident that if done right, with proper communication and transparency all will be well. But there are those moments where I ask myself, what the hell am i doing? Fearing I may do more harm, than good. I had one of these moments the other day during a demo of an API service provider product, when during the portion showing the number of API calls for any given day, on a specific API endpoint, they showed me I could “drill down”. This would show me where any group of calls originated, say by application, then further grouping by individual user of an app, then by individual call, allowing me to open a single API call and view the contents. Showing me the name, address and phone number of a specific user registration. Ummm. WTF! Its not like I have seen this before, but where I’m from this is called “packet sniffing”. And on the open Internet it isn’t something you do. To me this seems much more SOA than API, when it comes to ethics of APIs.... read more.

Tags: API Voice

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 Evangelist, API Strategy & Practice, Conference, Event


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