Blog

Judging an API At First Glance

by Kin Lane on 03/05/2013

I’m a little behind in working through my list of new APIs to review. So I’m spending about 3 hours each day going through my list of new APIs accumulated from ProgrammableWeb, Tweets, Bookmarks, Google Alerts and other ways I have for discovering new APIs. After looking through a couple hundred APIs, I wanted to share some things that stand out, and make me feel someone really doesn't give a shit when they hit publish on their API: Your entire developer area is a PDF Really long, incoherent URL for dev area Dev area is just a page in your help directory You put google ads on every page of your API documentation No communication, support or contact information at all Sign up form that pops up in my face as soon as page loads Require an NDA before I register These are just a handful of things that make me give an API a C or D grade, which means you probably aren’t on my radar. But then again if you don't have active blog or twitter or developers aren't talking about you, your API won't register on the radar even with a B grade. With tools like 3Scale, APIHub and Mashape out there, it isn’t hard to hang your API in a professional way, with minimal amount of effort and resources.... read more.

Tags: API Grade, API Ranking

Next Generation of API Driven Analytics and Visualizations

by Kin Lane on 03/04/2013

API driven analytics and visualizations is one of the new areas of API usage I'm tracking on. There are many “big data” platforms emerging these days, but I’m looking for dead simple tools and services anyone can use to generate analytics and visualizations via APIs. Think of reciprocity providers like IFTT, Zapier and Elastic. io. These new API driven service providers, make it easy to migrate data between cloud services, using a simple set of source API, triggers, actions and target APIs--with a dead simple icon and wizard based UI, allowing any user to put the platform to work. I want this approach for embeddable analytics, visualizations and other widgets that are easily generated via APIs. Last week I came across a new platform called Ducksboard, which allows you to easily generate some pretty sophisticated analytical widgets from common API sources. The platform even comes with a marketplace where you can find other widgets. The only problem is that Duckboards is meant to generate dashboards, and not really open and portable widgets. We'll keep an eye on this platform, see where it goes.... read more.

Tags: Analytics, Ducksboard, Keen IO, visualization

A 3rd Party API Showcase for Your API

by Kin Lane on 03/04/2013

I stumbled across the Twitter Counter API in my monitoring for the API Stack this morning. The Twitter Counter API allows you to retrieve key metrics on any Twitter account like username, url and avatar. All data you can get via the Twitter API, but with Twitter Counter API you get additional information like account growth statistics and ranking, that Twitter doesn't provide at all. I find it fascinating that someone can build an API to augment an existing API, which is why I keep talking about it, I guess :) We are seeing a more standardized version of this with API aggregation providers like Singly and Adigami, where they not only aggregate APIs from a variety of sources, they also build entirely new APIs based the added value that is created after they are brought together. Thinking about if further, it would be cool if you could submit your API to be listed in your parent API providers API area. Think of APIhub and Mashape, but every API area would have its own 3rd API marketplace. API providers often allow 3rd party developers to submit code libraries and samples to be listed as resources, as well as applications for listing in an application showcase.... read more.

Tags: Aggregation, Twitter, Twitter Counter API

API Pricing On Complexity, Speed and Support At Apicultur

by Kin Lane on 03/04/2013

How to structure pricing for an API is one of the top 5 questions I get from people who are currently planning their API strategy. In my opinion, there is, and never will be a one size fits all API pricing strategy. What you charge for your API resources should reflect their value and how they are accessed and used by your target consumers. The Backend as a Service (BaaS) space is working hard to differentiate themselves in 2013 with different approaches to pricing of mobile backend resources. Amazon is still shaking up the API space with new services, pricing models and the price reduction of API resources at a dizzying pace. I had the pleasure of meeting the Apicultur team while in Paris for API Days last October. Apicultur is a linguistics API platform, that is pushing the boundaries of what is an API platform as well as how you price language API resources.... read more.

Tags: Apicultur, Business Models, Monetization, Pricing

Short Sighted Silicon Valley Limits Potential of Data Markets

by Kin Lane on 03/04/2013

I’ve been following the great coverage by Paul MIller over at Cloud Ave about whether Infochimps running from the Data Market business, and Discussing Data Markets in New York City. He’s touched on any interesting topic around the viability of data markets as a business, and the fate of several of the most high profile players in the space. In 2011, when it comes to data API marketplaces and providers I tended to showcase players like Factual, Kasabi, DataMarket and InfoChimps. In 2013, we’ve watched Kasabi disappear, and the migration of InfoChimps from an open data market, to a enterprise data platform. While Factual and Datamarket appear to be going strong. I think this reflects a common, lack of imagination by Silicon Valley because they are so focused on making money, they miss the need to support critical aspects of industries, that are required to allow for the growth they want to see. While I feel there is money to be made off data marketplaces, however right now I think it is critical that we invest in people standing up and exposing data, not just focusing on making money off this process at levels that VC’s deem adequate.... read more.

Tags: Data, Data Market, Data marketplace, Factual, Infochimps, Kasabi

Learn the Mogreet MMS API with GUI API Construction Tool

by Kin Lane on 03/04/2013

Hands on, interactive tools are proving to be the most useful way to learn about an API--empowering users to see it in action, and witness the value it delivers. Many companies are doing this by providing API explorers, consoles, interactive documentation and other hands-on tools that allow you to see how any API actually functions and learn about the API in realtime. One of the latest companies to do this is MMS API provider Mogreet, which has stepped into the API explorer game with their own API tester allowing anyone to visually build an API call that sends multimedia messages, as well as take advantage of the 25 other methods available via the API platform. The API tester is available for all users via the developer dashboard, providing a hands on way to learn about the Mogreet API, all available endpoints, understand which parameters are required or optional, experiment with alternatives and quickly make the calls and see the result, understanding the value and operations before you get to work coding around the API. While I think using an API explorer like Apigee’s can provide value, but I also recommend rolling your own toolkits that might speak specifically to your target audience.... read more.

Tags: Console, Exporer, MMS, Mogreet

NYC Evangelist Meetup - February 2013 #APIStrat

by Kin Lane on 03/03/2013

During API Strategy & Practice in New York City, there was an awesome gathering of developer evangelists at the Tumblr offices, for the NYC Evangelist Meetup. I got the chance to hang out with several evangelist I know online, but have never met in person. We drank beers, ate pizza and talked about all things evangelist, evangelism, advocacy and hopefully some normal shit too. Thanks for having me over everyone! Have you ever seen so many evangelists in one room?... read more.

Tags: Apistrat, Developer Evangelist NYC, Nyc, Tumblr

Heroku Status and Incident Report Site

by Kin Lane on 03/02/2013

Heroku was down for a little while today. I saw the status report and for some reason actually clicked through to the web page. I don’t actually use Heroku, so it doesn’t impact me directly, but I’m always curious. I really like the Heroku status and incident report site. The site elegantly displays the last 30 days of status for the Heroku platform--complete with real-time notifications via email, SMS, Twitter, RSS and API.... read more.

Tags: Alerts, Heroku, Notifications, Pusher, status

Services Available From API Evangelist

by Kin Lane on 03/02/2013

I've had a lot of questions lately about how I make money, and how companies can either support what I do, and / or take advantage of services I offer. So I wanted to take some time to outline the services I offer to support the space, and make ends meet--while also keeping things moving forward in a healthy and positive way. Here are a few of the common areas I help my clients across multiple industries. Let me know if they are of interest to you. Adhoc Hang Out (15 minutes free then $40 every 15 minute increment) - Google Hangouts are a great way to interact. Let's talk. The first 15 minutes are always free, then let's dive deeper into your goals, the industry and anything API related you want to know. API Review (1250. 00) - Want your API reviewed by API Evangelist? Payment ensures your API will be reviewed, but not guarateed to be positive. :) API Onboarding ($250. 00) - I will onboard with your API just like any other developer and give you feedback on what worked, and where the friction was. Coding (Contact Me) - Need code samples, starter projects? I'm happy to be a paid developer, and produce code to stimulate adoption of your API.... read more.

Tags:

I Want An API

by Kin Lane on 03/02/2013

I feel we have done a good job explaining what is an API, why people need APIs, and providing services to manage APIs, but we are falling short on delivering information, tools and services for deploying APIs. First I want to acknowledge that many companies have established IT resources, in the form of technology talent, and internal systems they can put to use when deploying APIs. This post isn’t for you. This is about individual problem owners looking to deploy APIs, who most likely have little or no access to traditional IT resources for a variety of reasons. You want to deploy an API, because you havplease some data, content or other resources you need to make accessible to partners or the public, allowing for integration into other systems or be used in the development of web or mobile applications or possibly even data analysis and visualizations. Machine Readable As much as I love APIs, I suggest everyone consider your overall objective behind launching an API. You may not need an API, you may just need to make your information machine readable and available on the open Internet.... read more.

Tags: Deploy API, Launch API, Machine Readable