Blog

BeyondGET or OtherVerbs, an Augmented API Platform

by Kin Lane on 03/17/2013

I have a idea for a new API platform. Since I do not have any startup aspirations, I prefer setting my ideas free, for anyone to use, instead of acting on them myself. This idea is an evolution from an earlier one, which I had while working with the CityGrid API, called “augmented places”. While at CityGrid I constantly had people asking if they could submit data back to the API. Stating they had a better list of pizza places in Brooklyn or vegan restaurants in Santa Cruz. I had to always turn these folks away, and one morning I sketched out “augmented places”. It would be a service where anyone could submit their own meta data about a place, either adding an entirely new place, updating an existing one, or even remove a listing. It would provide an external service that could augment all places APIs, not just CityGrid. Fast forward to the other night, I did some data journalism for my girlfriend Audrey (@audreywatters), which included pulling data from the Crunchbase API. I pulled 3000 education startups from around the world, then after delivering to her in a JSON object and Google Spreadsheet, I immediately used the script to pull any API related startup, for my own needs.... read more.

Tags: Augmented API, Idea, startup, Verbs

Braintree Launches JS Library to Help Developers With PCI

by Kin Lane on 03/16/2013

Next generation payment provider Braintree just launched a new JavaScript library that helps merchants reduce their PCI scope in a flexible and testable way, which they are calling appropriately Braintree. js. According to Braintree, the library:. uses asymmetric encryption to prevent raw credit card data from passing through merchants' servers. It intercepts a form submit in the browser that contains sensitive data, encrypts that data with a public key provided to merchants by Braintree and then submits the form with the encrypted data to the server. Braintree retains the private key of the key pair so that merchants are unable to decrypt the encrypted fields server-side. Any string field in Braintree's API can be encrypted and encrypted values can be transparently dropped into any API call I’m a big supporter of what I call a healthy embeddable strategy, which includes buttons, badges, widgets and other tools you can build on top of an API or to support API integration. With the rise in populartiy of JavaScript, and the growth of platforms like Node. js, I predict that providing your API developers with standardized JS libraries that extend the value of your API will become commonplace.... read more.

Tags: Braintree, Embeddable, JavaScript, Payments

Using The Crunchbase API

by Kin Lane on 03/16/2013

Audrey came to me last night and said she had a project that she wanted to tackle, using the CrunchBase API. She wanted to pull a list of education startups that were founded in 2010-2012, showing their investments, CEO, founders and other related company information. A couple weeks ago, I helped Audrey download a PHP Twitter bot, reverse engineer and make it work for an objective she had around Tweeting random responses to a certain type of tweet. I figured she was ready to see what it took to hack on an API and get the research data she needed. Audrey wanted to pull a list of startups that were educated related. We started with the /search endpoint, using the query keyword “education”. The query parameter appears to search the title, tags and overview of each Crunchbase entry, pulling way more than what we needed, 5700 in total. Each search returned 10 startups, with a handful of fields for each company, not nearly enough information. To prove we could get what we needed, we took the first startup returned, grabbed the name and used it to perform a company /entity search, returning a wealth of information.... read more.

Tags: CrunchBase, Investment, Silicon Valley, startup, Techcrunch

API Badges, Logos and Stickers

by Kin Lane on 03/15/2013

I ended up at the Punfork API today for some reason. Full disclosure: "Punchfork has been acquired by Pinterest! Read the announcement. Site shutdown: March 31st, 2013". Just getting that out of the way. While at the site, I ended up at the Goodies page, which I think represents a nice set of basic embeddable tools for an API. First using Punchfork Badges, you can customize a badge, then copy and paste the embed code onto your blog's sidebar, or anywhere else you want it to appear: Then you can download a Punchfork logo (ok, its just one, but it gets point across): Last, you can enter your address and request a Punchfork sticker to be sent to you: These are all three, simple examples of a good approach to providing embeddable tools for users. Badges are pretty straightforward, and it is sensible to provide logos and other images as part of a healthy branding strategy. But the request for a sticker is something I haven't added to my listing of embeddable building blocks. After thinking about it, stickers are the OG embeddable tool. Something your users can take offline, and embed anywhere.... read more.

Tags: Badges, Branding, Logos, Stickers, Widgets

Business of APIs 2nd Edition

by Kin Lane on 03/15/2013

In May 2011 I released a book called the Business of APIs. The book was intended to be an introductory walkthrough for non-technical people, to the world of APIs. I wanted to educate business, organizational and governmental leaders about the space, and the important role of APIs in having a healthy digital strategy. Its coming up on two years later, and I'm finally getting around to updating the Business of APIs. After a nice long walk on the strand with @audreywatters, we have the outline for the next version: What is an API? What are APIs used for? The history of APIs What goes into an API? Do you need an API? How do you get an API? What are the common building blocks of an API? What are possible business models for an API? How do you evangelize and support an API? Where have some APIs stumbled? APIs, a new way of doing business The goal of the Business of APIs is the same. Help anyone, from any company, organization or the government understand what an API is, and why they are important. You don't have to be a developer to put APIs to use, this book is for everyone. Look for an updated version of the Business of APIs by June.... read more.

Tags: Book, Business of APIs

Pinboard API Tax Proposal

by Kin Lane on 03/15/2013

Maciej Ceglowskiis, the founder of popular social bookmarking platform Pinboard,made an interesting proposal over on the Pinboard Google Group: I've been thinking about imposing an API tax, the proceeds of which would go into improving API infrastructure and offsetting operating costs, structured along these lines: API free to use for your own Pinboard account Every API client making requests on behalf of someone else must register an app identifier $20/year tax if your app makes requests for over 100 Pinboard accounts $100/year tax if your app makes requests for over 1000 Pinboard accounts Possibly additional price levels to waive certain rate limits Think of it as a road tax that then pays for further construction, repair, and people in orange vests. I’m guessing that Maciej has a lot of experience to back his proposal, watching how developers use Pinboard for their own purposes, or on behalf of a user via a client. I heavily depend on Pinboard for my curation at API Evangelist, so API access would remain free for me. I’m not sure how I would feel if I was building a client.... read more.

Tags: Pinboard

Real-Time Notification Layer Within Your API

by Kin Lane on 03/15/2013

This story comes from Phil Leggetter (@leggetter) over at Pusher. Its about a client of theirs, cisimple, which provides continuous delivery services for mobile developers. cisimple just released a new API, which gives mobile developers more control over the build processes for their mobile applications. Using the cisimple API you can kick off new builds and download artifacts from your mobile dev process. cisimple is a very interesting API resource, that I will definitely be watching, and I’m sure I will be writing about in the near future. But what I really think is interesting is that cisimple is allowing clients to register for real-time updates via Pusher channels, using API tokens. This means that when you use cisimple to manage your mobile development, you now have a real-time push system that will send notifications when builds start, pass, fail, etc. This opens up a whole world of human integration with the build process via desktop and mobile notifications, but also can be used in other systems that play a role in your dev cycles. The weaving of a Pusher real-time notification layer into the cisimple API is pretty innovative. Something I’m sure will deliver huge value to their customers.... read more.

Tags: Cisimple, Pusher, Real-Time

An Essential Stack of Existing API Resources

by Kin Lane on 03/14/2013

I see a lot of new API platforms emerge, and often times you see them deploying their own solutions to problems that are actively solved by top API platforms, and are already adopted by common mobile and web app users. The best example of this is with authentication. Its growing more and more common that you don’t build your own login, you use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google or Github oAuth. It seems to me that when it comes to other common resources, the same could be applied. So I’m exploring what my essential stack of API driven resources might look like: Messages Photos Documents Videos Notes Bookmarks Blog Contacts Checkins Audio Calendar Payments Advertising URL Shortener I could do quite a bit with this assembled as a single backend stack, if it included a regular datastore, key-value store, user management and other essentials for building apps.... read more.

Tags: Essential, Stack

Top API Platforms Deliver More Node.js Resources for Developers

by Kin Lane on 03/13/2013

Node. js, the server-side software system designed for writing scalable Internet applications in JavaScript, seems to be getting more attention lately from top API providers because of its event-driven, asynchronous I/O that can minimizeoverhead and maximize scalability. Last week Google released an official Node. js client library for accessing Google APIs that supports authorization and authentication using OAuth 2. 0. Then earlier this week, Amazon Web Services announced that AWS Elastic Beanstalk, their PaaS solution now supports Node. js applications. While Google’s deployment is a client, and AWS’s is an application platform, they both have the same objective--enabling developers to build highly reliable, scalable, and cost-effective applications using APIs. Both Google and AWS recognize the potential for selling developers their valuable API driven resources, by providing them with Node. js solutions. JavaScript is the number one language on Github, with Node dominating most starred and most forked overall categories, according to Github trends. I think that AWS and Github both send a good signal to other API owners, that they need to step up the availablity of Node.... read more.

Tags: AWS, Google, JavaScript, Node.js

An API That Scrubs Personally Identifiable Information From Other APIs

by Kin Lane on 03/13/2013

One of the best aspects of being the API Evangelist, is I get to hang out with smart folks, doing gaming changing things across all business sectors. Last week I was able to make it to the API Social, an event held in Berkeley by a group of API savvy faculty members. This is my third one, and the group is up to some very interesting things. I had a conversation with one UC Berkeley analyst about a problem that isn’t just unique to a university, but they are working on an innovative solution for. The problem: UCB Developers are creating Web Services that provide access to sensitive data (e. g. grades, transcripts, current enrollments) but only trusted applications are typically allowed to access these Web Services to prevent misuse of the sensitive data. Expanding access to these services, while preserving the confidentiality of the data, could provide student and third party developers with opportunities to create new applications that provide UCB students with enhanced services.... read more.

Tags: PIN, Student Data, UC Berkeley