History of APIs: ProgrammableWeb
While writing about the history of APIs, it is easy to be so focused on just APIs, that you overlook the single most important player in the entire history of the web API–ProgrammableWeb. In July ...
Stories from 2012
Stories about the technology, business, policies, and people of APIs.
The Secret to a Successful API is Internal from #APIDays
Here is a video of one of my talks from API Days in Paris, France where I walked the internal side of APIs. This talk is derived from my post, the secret to amazons success is internal and stories ...
Insights From API Pioneers: Salesforce Developer Highlights of 2012
You can learn a lot from the history of APIs, and following what the pioneers are doing. Salesforce isn’t the coolest API within the Hacker News community, but when it comes to building an API eco...
New API Stories in 2013
Storytelling in the API industry is critical to the healthy growth of the space. John Musser and ProgrammableWeb have been telling great stories in the tech industry, since way before APIs were all...
Five Areas of Collective Action Around Personal Data
I’m immersed in deep thought around my personal data, asking some important questions about my digital self--which includes the state of my online personal data. After reading 14 big trends to wat...
Hello IPA Evangelist
My name is Kin Lane, I am the API Evangelist. While traveling the globe, dedicating my life to API evangelism, I only drink one beer--IPAs. Coincidence? I think not! This blog is dedicated to dis...
A Time to Reflect and Ask Questions of 2012
The end of the year is a great time to reflect–looking back at the year with a desire to quantify and understand ourselves. With our increasingly digital (social, cloud, mobile, APIs) lives, there...
Amazing Visuals, But Lack of API Imagination
I was scrolling through my feeds today and I came across, “Earth As Art” from NASA. I clicked on the homepage and didn’t think much, and moved on. Then I came across Earth as Art book from NASA on ...
You Can't Spell Capitalism Without API
I like a good API shirt. If you’ve ever seen me in person you’ve seen my API Evangelist shirt(s). At least you guys hope its multiple shirts, otherwise…ewwwee! I recently started a new design - ...
You Can't Spell Capitalism Without API
I like a good API shirt. If you’ve ever seen me in person you’ve seen my API Evangelist shirt(s). At least you guys hope its multiple shirts, otherwise…ewwwee! I recently started a new design - ...
Top 10 Posts on API Evangelist in 2012
2012 has been a great year to be in the API space. We saw some pretty amazing growth, and everyone is talking APIs going into 2013. I wrote 243 blog posts on API Evangelist in 2012. The top 10 pos...
API Trends
In addition to helping people understand the history of APIs, I’m looking to help people grasp what the future holds, when it comes to APIs. So, while tracking on the API industry, I’m always on th...
History of APIs
The history of APIs is something I discuss a lot. The history of modern web APIs is something I include in all my talks, and I’m always surprised by how little people understand some of the more p...
Business Models For Your API as Startup from API Days
Here is a video of one of my talks from API Days in Paris, France where I walked through potential thoughts on business model for a hypothetical startup. I had a separate talk prepared, but after ...
Taking APIs To Next Level With API Scripting Platforms
I’m working hard to understand the emerging patterns of of how APIs used, work through the details, and grasp the differences in competing approaches–in hopes of identifying what is next when it co...
API Driven 3D Printing and Manufacturing Supply Chain
I’m working on a new trends section of API Evangelist. One area i’m tracking on is the opportunities around 3D printing and APIs. I did some fun research, and laid down some interest thoughts o...
The Need for More Domain Experts in the API Space
The number of available APIs is growing at a neck breaking speed. I have trouble keeping up with individual APIs, and I feel I am losing touch with the nuances and trends within specific areas like...
Making An Impact On Environment With Building Management APIs
I had a chance to talk with the Johnson Controls, Panoptix API team this last week. The Panoptix® community offers: a combination of software and services that easily and cost-effectively helps...
API Questions for Wade Foster of Zapier over at Startup Juicer
Some great API questions for Wade Foster, Co-founder & CEO of Zapier over at Startup Juicer today. Zapier is a company that couldn’t have existed even a few years ago as API’s were not commonp...
APIphany Adds Support for Github, Facebook and Twitter in all API Developer Portals
API service provider APIphany followed some of my advice this last week, and added support for Github, Facebook and Twitter in all of their developer portals. Using oAuth from Twitter, Facebook an...
Get My New Che P.I. T-Shirts
While I was in France, the art director at Faber Novel did some cool sketches of me. Since I’m so graphically challenged (see my logo), I’m stoked to have the artwork to work with. I’ve been play...
Get My New Che P.I. T-Shirts
While I was in France, the art director at Faber Novel did some cool sketches of me. Since I’m so graphically challenged (see my logo), I’m stoked to have the artwork to work with. I’ve been play...
Exploring a New Way of Planning and Executing Hackathons
I started tracking on Hackathons full time in 2011, as part of my API Evangelism toolbox. In 2012 I’ve watched Hackathons explode and become a popular way for API owners to engage and build a relat...
What Does Singly's AppFabric Mean?
Singly is continuing its quest to easily explain what it does for developers. The San Francisco startup has re-launched defining itself as, fabric for connected apps, or AppFabric. Singly puts ...
What Does Singly's AppFabric Mean?
Singly is continuing its quest to easily explain what it does for developers. The San Francisco startup has re-launched defining itself as, fabric for connected apps, or AppFabric. Singly puts ...
Mulesoft Launches API Discovery Hub
API Discovery is becoming an increasingly troubling problem. As an analyst, I see a dizzying amount of APIs each month. When I get asked to find a particular type of API, or group of APIs in a part...
Hack Weekends Directory, Hackathon Guide and Site Template
Hackathons have been a big part of current web API movement. They are one of the most meaningful ways API owners can connect with developers in person. Twilio, Amazon and Facebook have all used ha...
API Evangelist Drawings
While I was in Paris speaking at API Days last week, a drawing of me was circulated on Twitter. I was a little speachless when I saw them on Twitter. I am always looking for new graphics to use i...
Some Thoughts For the Enterprise Embracing Web APIs
At the Gartner AADI Conference in Las Vegas, NV last week I discussed the “grass-roots web API movement” with quite a few enterprise folks. Walking through the exhibit floor, where I did my buildin...
Open Sourcing Hack Weekends Using Github
I’ve been maintaining a calendar of hackathons for all of 2012. Originally it was just a section off of API Evangelist, but eventually the site needed to be its own project. Up until now its just b...
The Secret to a Successful API is Internal #APIDays
I had the pleasure of speaking at API Days in Paris, France this week. The organizers originally asked me to do one talk, but after some speaker shuffle, I ended up with three separate talks on API...
Business Models for Your API as a Start-Up #APIDays
The organizers of APIs Days asked me at the last moment if I’d like to do a third talk at the European API event, due to last minute cancellations. Of course, I jumped on the opportunity to genera...
Building Blocks (Bricks) For Your Developer Portal #APIDays
I gave a talk at API Days in Paris, France this week. This talk was using some of my usual material around the building blocks of an API. As I always do, I omitted some slides and evolved my prese...
#APIDays in Paris France Wrap-Up
I got back last night from France, where I spent the week at the #APIDays conference, billed as the first international event on APIs in Europe. The two day event was organized by faberNovel, who h...
Start-Up Offers Blueprints For 3D Printed Parts
I read a great post recently about how a company called Teenage Engineering has started providing 3D CAD files that allow their customers to 3D print replacement parts for the products they make. ...
Spectagram Rolls Out Instagrams Embeddable Strategy for Them
There was a great post last week on ProgrammableWeb from Curtis C. Chen (@sparCKL), on how a company called Spectagram has launched a new JavaScript library built on top of Instagram. Spectagram u...
My API Building Blocks Workshop With Intel at the Gartner AADI Conference
I conducted two workshops this week in partnership with Intel at the Gartner AADI Conference in Las Vegas. Working from my Building Blocks of a Successful API material, I put together a 30 minute w...
LearnSrout Says IlluminateEd API is Best Student Information System API So Far
I got an email from Anthony Wu over at LearnSprout yesterday. If you are not following what LearnSprout is up to, they are bridging legacy student information systems (SIS) and providing easy to us...
Facebook Provides Developers with Platform Alerts
Right before the Thanksgiving holiday, in an effort to make the Facebook platform more responsive and dependable for developers, Facebook announced Developer Alerts. Developer alerts are a way for ...
Does Your API Showcase Its DOers?
Poster boy for how to properly run your API ecosystem properly, Twilio, recently updated their DOer Gallery to highlight developers in the Twilio ecosystem that build cool stuff on the popular voic...
Adigami Aggregates Analytics APIs Into Single Interface
In 2012 the number of APIs has grown significantly. We are transitioning from “there aren’t enough APIs” to “how do we more intelligently use many APIs”. As I track on this and the future of web AP...
Where To Have Your API Sticker Swag Printed?
Swag can be a critical tool in any API evangelist toolbox. And stickers are one piece of swag that if possessing the right design, can be something developers will take home and put to use. Earlie...
Managing API Terms of Service, Privacy, and Branding with Github
The legal building blocks of an API can be just as critical as the technical and business building blocks. It makes sense to version and communicate your API terms of use (TOS) , privacy policy and...
Join Me For AngelHack Los Angeles This Weekend with Singly
I’m going to head over to AngelHack Los Angeles this weekend (Saturday, December 1, 2012 at 9:00 AM - Sunday, December 2, 2012 at 5:00 PM) with Singly. AngelHack Los Angeles is part of 11 city hac...
I Will Be At API Days in Paris France Next Week
I am heading to Paris, France next week for API Days. API Days is December 3rd and 4th in Paris and is dubbed as the “First National Event on APIs in Europe”. The two day event is organized by fabe...
Chartboost's API Driven Approach to Application Development
The team over at Chartboost have a pretty forward thinking blog post about what they see as the next generation of web application development. They feel that the future is about creating web appl...
Chartboost's API Driven Approach to Application Development
The team over at Chartboost have a pretty forward thinking blog post about what they see as the next generation of web application development. They feel that the future is about creating web appl...
PeopleBrowsr Wins Temporary Injunction To Keep Twitter From Shutting Off Firehose
Social analytics provider PeopleBrowsr has won a temporary injunction against Twitter today, with a complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court. It reads: PeopleBrowsr seeks a preliminary and ...
3Scale Launches Open Source API Proxy Built On NGNIX
Those of you who follow my blog, know my favorite API management service provider is 3Scale. It’s no secret I’m a fan of what they are doing. We share a vision of the API space and what a healthy A...
Where Are The APIs For State Health Insurance Exchanges?
I was listening to a story about Nevada quietly starting their implementation of health insurance exchanges, as part of what everyone loves to call Obamacare. I’m not even going to get involved in ...
Using Github For Your Hackathon
Hackathons are a fertile environment for generating code based upon the ideas of its attendees. However, much of the innovative programming that occurs at these events is forgotten the day after th...
The API Fabric for the Next Generation of Apps
I’m always on the hunt for meaningful API analogies, to stock my evangelism toolbox. Ways that I can relate the potential of APIs, in a way that anyone can understand, even non-developers. In my o...
Socrata Planning Open Source Government Data Server
Socrata announced today that they are preparing to release an open source, cloud-based, open data system, called the “Socrata Open Data Server, Community Edition.” If you don’t already follow what ...
BandPage Connects Bands To Their Fans Using An API
BandPage, a hub for musicians to manage and control their online presence, just expanded their reach with BandPage Connect, an API, allowing developers to build apps for the music industry. I wrote...
Axway Acquires API Management Service Provider Vordel
I don’t know if you saw the big news last week, but software publisher Axway announced intent to acquire API service provider Vordel. I’m not a big fan of covering funding, acquisition or launch pr...
Communicate Your API Roadmap with Github
When you operate an API, you need to make sure and communicate with your developer community about what your plans are for the future, so developers can plan their own roadmap, and keep in sync wit...
Still Looking for Evangelists in Portland, Seattle and Austin
I started actively looking for evangelists, advocates and ambassadors in multiple cities last week. I got a great response from quite a few folks who were already evangelizing in their communities ...
CloudMine + Singly = Rapid Mobile App Development With Social Baked In
Backend as a Service (BaaS) provider CloudMine and aggregated social API platform Singly announced a partnership today, to make sure the mobile applications developers are building using CloudMine ...
API Strategy & Practice Reboot, February 21st, 22nd 2013
It’s been 2 weeks since New York City was hit by hurricane Sandy, and while things aren’t back to normal, everyone is beginning to look to the future, and starting the process of moving past the de...
API Strategy & Practice Reboot, February 21st, 22nd 2013
It’s been 2 weeks since New York City was hit by hurricane Sandy, and while things aren’t back to normal, everyone is beginning to look to the future, and starting the process of moving past the de...
API Evangelist Development Partner, Concentric Sky
Mobile app development is at the center of API deployment in 2012. Much of the interest in designing, developing and deploying APIs is so that you can successfully launch one, or multiple mobile ap...
API Issue Management Using Github
Github should be the center of your API operations, with the most obvious use being for SDK repositories, but Github offers a lot of other valuable tools that you can use to manage your API platfor...
Preparing for the Defrag Experience
I was trying to explain the experience of being at the Defrag Conference, to a friend the other day. We are both gearing up for the event, next week (November 14th & 15th), in Broomfield Colora...
API Issue Management Using Github
Github should be the center of your API operations, with the most obvious use being for SDK repositories, but Github offers a lot of other valuable tools that you can use to manage your API platfo...
Publish Your API Presentations and Guides to Github
Github isn’t just for code. Github can be used for HTML documents and PDF’s as well. This opens up endless possibilities for management of documents you wish to share with your developer ecosystem....
Gil Speaking at Techonomy on The Meanings of Data
I’m digging on this statement from Gil Elbaz @ Factual. Gil is participating on a panel “The Forest for the Trees: The Meanings of Data” at the Techonomy Conference on Sunday, November 11th in Tuc...
API KPIs Should Be Optimized for Developer Success
When it comes to measuring the success of an API, we often experience a lack meaningful metrics, with many companies only tracking the number of new developers and quantity of API calls. Going beyo...
Evangelists Needed in New York, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Denver, Austin and Portland
I call it being an evangelist, but it has other names, such as advocate or ambassador. Someone who is good at evangelism, in my opinion, starts with a love of hacking but is also having a love of h...
API Developer Profiling Using Github
One very powerful way to use Github within your API strategy is for developer profiling. This approach requires the deployment of another Github solution, API Developer login using Github. After y...
Make Your Own About.json File For Your Company Website
I spend a lot of time trying to find company logos and a little blurb about what a company does. You’d think in this cloudy API driven world there would a simpler way. I decided to create my ow...
Make Your Own About.json File For Your Company Website
I spend a lot of time trying to find company logos and a little blurb about what a company does. You’d think in this cloudy API driven world there would a simpler way. I decided to create my ow...
Help EFF Make Case For No Copryight on APIs
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) needs our help to explain to the Federal Circuit Court on why there should NOT be copyrights on APIs. As EFF published today: Earlier this year, we appl...
Discuss the API Strategy & Practice Session Lineup in a Live Hangout
We are wasting no time getting the API Strategy & Practice conference back on track, after being put on hold because of hurricane Sandy. With the current status of New York City, it’s subways, ...
Discuss the API Strategy & Practice Session Lineup in a Live Hangout
We are wasting no time getting the API Strategy & Practice conference back on track, after being put on hold because of hurricane Sandy. With the current status of New York City, it’s subways, ...
About API Evangelist .JSON
I spend a lot of time looking for a quick description or logo for companies. Finding a good quality logo is a pain in the ass! To be the change I want to see in the world, I created an about....
REST Web Services & API Security with Intel
When it comes to API service providers, there is one brand that I would say is widely known, but when we are talking about APIs, often gets overlooked. That company is Intel. In addition to a whol...
REST Web Services & API Security with Intel
When it comes to API service providers, there is one brand that I would say is widely known, but when we are talking about APIs, often gets overlooked. That company is Intel. In addition to a whol...
API Developer Login Using Github
As with most social platforms, Github provides oAuth for their platform, allowing developers to provide secure credentials and authentication for their users via a Github account. Service provider...
Pearson Sets Example For Other Publishing APIs
One API I’ve been watching grow and evolve from day one is the Pearson Developer Community. I first wrote about them when Peasron announced a new initiative to build an API platform that give devel...
API Code Samples via Gists
Code samples in a variety of languages are how API owners help developers understand an API in the language that makes the most sense to them. Not all developers will understand REST, HTTP and oth...
SDK Management for Your API with Github
The most common use of Github by API providers is to publish API SDK’s to the popular social coding platform. If you look at most of the the top API providers in operation today, you will find they...
Next Generation of API Service Provider: APIphany
I get so busy sometimes my stories pile up. Some only seeing the light of day when I get caught up on research, projects, travels and speaking. On story I’ve been meaning to write for almost 3 mont...
APIs Can Save Money and Make Government More Efficient
While I was out in Washington DC this week, one of the Presidential Innovation Fellows in my workshop was from the Department of Energy, and shared one of the best examples of APIs delivering value...
Version Control Your API Documentation with Github
Out of date API documentation is by far the most common mistake API providers make, and also the number one pain point for API developers. It makes sense that you will want to keep your API documen...
My Presentation to the Presidential Innovation Fellows
I spent two hours with a handful of the Presidential Innovation Fellows in Washington DC yesterday. They were some super savvy folks from a wide variety of agencies and backgrounds including educat...
A Problem With Finding API Owners in Government
I had a great discussion with a friend who works in federal government yesterday. We were talking about various ways to “successfully” deploy APIs within the federal government. She gets APIs, unde...
A Hackathon Philosophy From Warren Wilbee of Microsoft
While doing the weekly hackathon roundup in September, I noticed an uptick in the number of Windows 8 hackathons that are going on. I decided to reach out to Microsoft and see if I can get more inf...
Open Source Your API With Github
Github is a frequently used service in the toolbox of API owners. The most common use of Github is for publishing API SDKs in a variety of languages and platforms. But when it comes to truly being ...
Alcatel-Lucent's Laura Merling at API Strategy & Practice
When 3Scale and I first decided to do the API Strategy & Practice Conference in New York, one of the first people I reached out to about speaking and sponsoring the event, was Laura Merling (@m...
Alcatel-Lucent's Laura Merling at API Strategy & Practice
When 3Scale and I first decided to do the API Strategy & Practice Conference in New York, one of the first people I reached out to about speaking and sponsoring the event, was Laura Merling (@m...
The Right Partnership for the API Strategy & Practice Conference
The API Strategy & Practice Conference is kicking off in 12 days in New York City. The event will be keynotes, sessions and panels from over 60 leading individuals across all sectors of the API...
The Right Partnership for the API Strategy & Practice Conference
The API Strategy & Practice Conference is kicking off in 12 days in New York City. The event will be keynotes, sessions and panels from over 60 leading individuals across all sectors of the API...
A 100% Open API Industry & Conference
When I set out to put on an API industry event in early 2012, I had grand visions of what it would be. Getting everyone together to discuss the best ideas, approaches the industry has to offer–whil...
A 100% Open API Industry & Conference
When I set out to put on an API industry event in early 2012, I had grand visions of what it would be. Getting everyone together to discuss the best ideas, approaches the industry has to offer–whil...
A Rock'n Speaker Lineup for API Strategy & Practice
I finished updating the speaker lineup for the API Strategy & Practice Conference this weekend. While we still have a couple of panels to finalize and keynotes to announce, the speaker lineup i...
A Rock'n Speaker Lineup for API Strategy & Practice
I finished updating the speaker lineup for the API Strategy & Practice Conference this weekend. While we still have a couple of panels to finalize and keynotes to announce, the speaker lineup i...
Thoughts On Running a Successful Meetup From Jeremia Kimmelman of Mobile Mondays
As part of my research into how to create healthy developer communities, I’ve been spending time reaching out to organizers of developer meetups in different cities so I can get some insight into w...
Heading to Washington DC to Talk APIs with Innovation Fellows
I was honored this month to receive an invitation from Todd Park (@todd_park), the U.S. Chief Technology Officer, on behalf of the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program, to come out to Washington...
Does The Way I Look Make You Uncomfortable? Ok Now You're Ready for APIs!
Lots of big news coming out of Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC2011) in San Francisco today. We saw major enhancements coming down the pipes with IOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion. What really ...
Does The Way I Look Make You Uncomfortable? Ok Now You're Ready for APIs!
Lots of big news coming out of Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC2011) in San Francisco today. We saw major enhancements coming down the pipes with IOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion. What really ...
The API Evangelist Mission
Many folks who encounter API Evangelist think I’m working to evangelize a single API. I field so many questions about this I thought I would address by publishing an API Evangelist mission stateme...
NPR Adds Content Permission Control to their API
NPR is defining new models for content distribution. One that other media providers can follow, when designing their API driven content delivery platforms. The NPR Story API provides digital acces...
Developers Resist API Evangelism
Marketing to developers is no straightforward task, and with the growth in the number of APIs, platforms, tools and active evangelists and advocates, it is only going to get harder. Developers jus...
Join Me and WSO2 for a Webinar on API Management Building Blocks and Business Value
I will be doing a webinar with Chris Haddad (@cobiacomm) of WSO2 on October 9th, where we discuss API management best practices for digital business ecosystem. WSO2 is one of my partner API server...
Github is the Social Network of the Future
There is a lot of news about social networks in the last couple of weeks, with Facebook reaching 1B users, a brand new look for MySpace giving people hope for the struggling social network, the gre...
Hack the Process
Hackathons are a popular way for developers to come together and hack on mobile and web apps, in hopes of winning prizes and getting noticed for their innovation. Silicon Valley has done a great jo...
Just a Few of the People Speaking at the API Strategy & Practice Conference
The API Strategy & Practice conference added 15 speakers to their API industry event November 1st and 2nd in New York City: Jakub Nestril from Apiary (@jakubnesetril) Mike Reich from Cumu...
Just a Few of the People Speaking at the API Strategy & Practice Conference
The API Strategy & Practice conference added 15 speakers to their API industry event November 1st and 2nd in New York City: Jakub Nestril from Apiary (@jakubnesetril) Mike Reich from Cumu...
Tumblr Launches New Github Site
The Tumblr engineering team has been hard at work on a new Github page, showcasing the open source projects they’ve released. Tumblr has also added a coming soon section, highlighting open sourc...
The Best Team Page Ever!!
When it comes to any business, you want to showcase your team, and the value they bring to the table. One of the things I do here at API Evangelist, is showcase great examples of technology acro...
API Strategy & Practice + Defrag
When you spend a lot of time going to conferences, hackathons and events, you start really getting picky about which events you go to. To disrupt my regular routine, I need an event that will alway...
API Strategy & Practice + Defrag
When you spend a lot of time going to conferences, hackathons and events, you start really getting picky about which events you go to. To disrupt my regular routine, I need an event that will alway...
API Issue Management With Github
Github should be the center of your API operations, with the most obvious use being for SDK repositories, but Github offers a lot of other valuable tools that you can use to help manage your API pl...
Pulling a Federal Agencies Digital Strategy
Back in May, when the White House CIO has released a strategy, entitled “Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People”, which directs all federal agencie...
Will Your Company Be Found In a Siri Search?
I’m currently processing several discussion I’ve had with folks about APIs and the future of search when it comes to voice enabled apps, like Apple’s Siri. It started with a discussion with the We...
Simple API Developer Tracking Framework
When you have an API, you track two things: 1) Number of Developer Registrations and 2) Number of API requests. This is how we determine a successful API, right? You should track those two things,...
Generate API Server, Docs and Client Code Using Swagger
We all have our own approaches to API design and development, many of which will never see the light of day. In the API space we hear a lot about API management and API success stories, but not muc...
YouTube Moves API QA to Stack Overflow
YouTube has decided to cease support for Youtube API QA via dedicated Google Group, and exclusively use Stack Overflow for developer QA support. Every developer knows that Stack Overflow is where ...
An API Driven Quantified Self
I’m immersing myself into the fascinating new world of the Quantified Self (QS). If you are not familiar with what QS is, according to Wikipedia: Quantified Self is a movement to incorporate techn...
Twitter Rumored to Remove Third-Party Image Services From Clients
I was just reading a post via Buzzfeed, that Twitter was going to remove third-party image services from its apps. “According to a person who was briefed on the company’s plans”, the changes will b...
Twitter Rumored to Remove Third-Party Image Services From Clients
I was just reading a post via Buzzfeed, that Twitter was going to remove third-party image services from its apps. “According to a person who was briefed on the company's plans”, the ...
Steve Klabnik Added to Speakers at API Strategy & Practice
I’m stoked to announce that Steve Klabnik will be speaking at the API Strategy & Practice conference, November 1st & 2nd in New York City. I just added him to the homepage and speaker line-...
Steve Klabnik Added to Speakers at API Strategy & Practice
I’m stoked to announce that Steve Klabnik will be speaking at the API Strategy & Practice conference, November 1st & 2nd in New York City. I just added him to the homepage and speaker line-...
Fireside Chat with Albert Wenger at API Strategy & Practice
We are at an exciting time right now with the API Practice & Strategy conference, where we get to orchestrate the best lineup of speakers, sessions and panels possible. I just added Steve Klab...
Fireside Chat with Albert Wenger at API Strategy & Practice
We are at an exciting time right now with the API Practice & Strategy conference, where we get to orchestrate the best lineup of speakers, sessions and panels possible. I just added Steve Klab...
Twitter's Embed Strategy Gets Priority in API Developer Area
I’m a big supporter of API providers having a healthy embed strategy. I bundle any widgets, buttons and any API driven tool that allows enables users to take advantage of APIs, under the label, “AP...
Twitter's Embed Strategy Gets Priority in API Developer Area
I’m a big supporter of API providers having a healthy embed strategy. I bundle any widgets, buttons and any API driven tool that allows enables users to take advantage of APIs, under the label, “AP...
Rank My API Developers Who Authenticate With Github
I’m updating the login and authentication for my content management system, APIs and other tools to provide authentication using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Github by default. I’m using Singly ...
API Automation is the New SDK
I’m seeing a lot of talk about API automation using platforms like IFTTT and Zapier these days. It’s one of the fastest growing areas of my future of web APIs series. A sign of this growth can b...
SOA Cloud 2012 Service Technology Symposium
I’m happy to be a media partner for the SOA Cloud 2012 Service Technology Symposium, the largest international conference dedicated to the exploration of SOA, cloud computing and modern service tec...
NASA Adds a Little Extra Github To Their Digital Strategy
I’ve been tracking the adoption of the White House CIO’s digital strategy, trying understand each agency’s mobile and API plans. Today I noticed that NASA, in addition to publishing their digital ...
What If APIs Should Be Finding Developers Instead of Developers Discovering APIs?
I was spending time thinking about API discovery methodologies this afternoon (I know…I have issues), but with ProgrammableWeb approaching 8K public APIs, its a very real problem. Currently, as an...
What Drives Me Crazy When Integrating With a New API?
I was directed to an API question today, that needs to be asked constantly in the space: What’s your biggest web API pet peeve? What drives you crazy when integrating with a new API? — Wynn ...
API Can Be a Liability Without Proper BizDev Process
At first glance, APIs seem like something very technical, and the REST pundits do a good job of maintaining this perspective. Even though at the core of what we currently know as a “web API” there ...
Ok, Geoloqi Has the Coolest Platform Pricing Page
Many providers don’t offer a clear pricing page for their services, sticking to old school concepts of software sales where they can change and adjust pricing, depending on who they are talking to....
Introducing the Next Generation of Communication Using APIs
APIs are everywhere. The number of public APIs available on ProgrammableWeb are growing at a dizzying pace, with current count being at 7,207. The number of API service providers and tools supporti...
The Next Generation of API Programming Using Temboo and Webshell
I’m exploring the future of web APIs, and have come to what I feel is what of the most fascinating areas of evolution in the usage of web APIs. An approach that is very developer centric, which is...
API Strategy & Practice Conference NYC
The API industry has come of age in 2012. ProgrammableWeb has rolled over 7000 public APIs available, President Obama has mandated that all federal departments and agencies deploy APIs, and there a...
API Strategy & Practice Conference NYC
The API industry has come of age in 2012. ProgrammableWeb has rolled over 7000 public APIs available, President Obama has mandated that all federal departments and agencies deploy APIs, and there a...
Alcatel-Lucent Open Sources their API Management Platform
Following the creative commons release of their API lifecycle methodology, telco API service provider Alcatel-Lucent has open sourced the “underpinnings” of their Open API Platform(OAP). The API m...
Alcatel-Lucent Open Sources their API Management Platform
Following the creative commons release of their API lifecycle methodology, telco API service provider Alcatel-Lucent has open sourced the “underpinnings” of their Open API Platform(OAP). The API m...
Providing API Developers with Github Login Using Singly
I’m building a small API that I want to allow developers to register for. I don’t want to make it a complicated registration process, I just want them to provide some sort of credentials and I will...
Mobile Application Builder Platforms
In my quest to understand the possible future of Web APIs, I’m trying to understand the opportunities available for APIs when it comes to latest wave of mobile app builder platforms. I’m the most ...
How an API Strategy can Create an Innovation Engine for Engineers and Scientists
This is a case study sent to me from National Instruments. I just had to post it as is, because it just shows the serious potential of APIs. If cloud computing and mobile hasn’t convinced you tha...
Why Don't I Have Easy Access to all My Online Personal Data
I was just downloading all of my Facebook data. You can go under your account settings and there is a little link that lets you download everything. It takes some time to generate a full archive, ...
Why Don't I Have Easy Access to all My Online Personal Data
I was just downloading all of my Facebook data. You can go under your account settings and there is a little link that lets you download everything. It takes some time to generate a full archive, ...
Crowdsourced API Terms of Service
API terms of service (TOS) is one of the most critical, yet one of the most silent links for developers who are building apps and business on top of APIs. Terms of service determine what you can or...
146 Planned APIs from 19 Federal Depts and Agencies as Part of their Digital Strategy
Three months after the White House CIO mandated that all federal departments and agencies have a digital strategy, we are getting closer to having access to some high value APIs, across almost twen...
Efficient Social API Development with Singly
Last week I announced that API Evangelist and Singly were partnering, and while I’m helping Singly with their API Evangelism strategy and they are providing me with some vital data on some of the m...
Open Source Mobile Backend as a Service
A very interesting comment left on the post was about MBaaS vendor lock-in: The big problem, IMHO, using a BaaS provider is the so called “vendor lock in”. What if my backend provider changes t...
Mobile Backend as a Service Roundup and the Future of Web APIs
I’m continuing my research into the future of web APis, and after watching leading Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) provider Kinvey start building APIs into their platform, I think MBaaS provide...
Landscape Analysis and Monitoring as Part of Your API Evangelism
One very important aspect of API Evangelism is landscape analysis. When you launch an API, you need to have an intimate understanding of the landscape where you will be evangelizing your API and en...
API Automation Platforms
I’ve been doing lots of research into the future of web APIs lately, and one area that is definitely gaining more traction is the ability to automate tasks, by defining triggers and actions on top ...
11 More Federal Departments and Agencies Have Published Their API Digital Strategies
I’ve been running a monitoring script every night, so that I could tell when any of the federal department and agency have launched their digital strategy pages, per Barack Obamas Presidential dire...
API Evangelist Partners Up with Singly To Evolve The Social and Personal API Space
The world around us is being redefined and a new currency is taking shape. Tweets on Twitter, wall posts to Facebook, pictures on Instagram, files on Dropbox and health data via Fitbit are emblemat...
This Week Is First Milestone in White House Roadmap for an API Driven Digital Strategy
It will be 3 months since the White House CiO Steven VanRoekel released a federal API strategy, entitled “Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People”, ...
My API Talk at Montgomery County Java User Group in DC
While out in Washington DC last week I was invited to speak at the Montgomery County Java User Group in Rockville, MD. Without much of an understanding of who my audience was I chose to talk about ...
API Craft Washington DC
Continuing my API Craft road show, I landed in Washington DC for the second week in August. As I planned my trip to the nations capital, I planted the seeds for an API Craft DC version. I chose a ...
API Craft San Francisco
On the heels of the successful API Craft meetup in Portland during OSCON, I was landing in San Francisco for a few days and at the request of SFO API folk, quickly organized a meetup at the Chiefta...
The Building Blocks of a Successful API
When I started API Evangelist two years ago, I noticed some common practices by API owners, in how they tailored their API areas, and I started calling these API building blocks. I started a sectio...
Thirty APIs To Look At When Planning Your API
When planning an API, I always tell people to go look at as many of the top APIs as they can before crafting their own API strategy. I’m always surprised how many API owners I talk to don’t actuall...
The APIs That I Depend On For My Business
I maintain an active list of online services I depend on for my business, in Evernote. Each month I spend an hour or two maintaining this list, to make sure it is complete and actively change my lo...
Disqus Uses Twitter #HashTag to Support Developer FAQs
I’m always on the lookout for extremely simple ways API Evangelists can support their developers without rolling out complex tools or platforms. The latest approach comes from the Disqus API, and h...
API Driven Twitter Advertising
I’m playing around with my Twitter Advertising account, trying to understand Twitter’s path to monetization. The Twitter Advertising interface is pretty clean and simple, allowing me to promote my ...
What is the Future of Web APIs?
Photo by Nicholas_T APIs are about to enter a new phase, one where developers can easily program using multiple APIs at once, and non-developers can easily introduce API automation into both their...
Update Once, Publish Everywhere with an Embeddable API Strategy
Embeddable tools like widgets, gadgets and buttons built on top of an API are nothing new. A healthy embeddable strategy was behind the success of popular platforms like Youtube, Google Maps, Twitt...
Definition of API Craft
The current API development space is very self-ruled, in that web API developers have freed themselves of earlier SOA attempts to rigidly define and ultimately constricted API growth, into a more g...
Let Developers Register for Your API with Their Github Profile
I was playing with Singly, a unified social API last night. One of the first things I saw, after landing on the home page, were two choices for signing up as a developer–one with Facebook or the ot...
A Unified Interface for Social APIs with Singly
Web APIs come in all shapes and sizes. The differences between API authentication, interfaces and data types can be a big challenge when developers work with multiple social networking APIs like Tw...
Dwolla's New Developer Area is Not Just for Developers
Next generation payment platform Dwolla just revamped the home page of their developer center to speak to the widest audience possible. When you land at developers.dwolla.com you are given two opti...
Dwolla's New Developer Area is Not Just for Developers
Next generation payment platform Dwolla just revamped the home page of their developer center to speak to the widest audience possible. When you land at developers.dwolla.com you are given two opti...
Don't Forget About the API Pioneers When You Think APIs Won't Work
As we continue to stress over all the news of API ecosystem battles, and how APIs owners are evil, and once a business grows up, it has to choose between being a hobby developer platform or real gr...
Don't Forget About the API Pioneers When You Think APIs Won't Work
As we continue to stress over all the news of API ecosystem battles, and how APIs owners are evil, and once a business grows up, it has to choose between being a hobby developer platform or real g...
Two Years of API Evangelism
According to Techcrunch, Twitter suspended Mobber, a platform that rewards users for distributing promoted content through their social media accounts, from using the Twitter API. Mobber’s service...
Twitter Acquisitions
Acquisition of technology startups by companies is a regular part of business today, providing a way for these companies to get the technology, talent, as well as user and market share they need to...
Where Do I Learn More About APIs?
I’m closely following the Oracle v Google case playing out in a court of law right now, and more specifically the Tweet stream of Wired writer, Caleb Garling. According to Garling: “A jury has...
Twitter Acquisitions
Acquisition of technology startups by companies is a regular part of business today, providing a way for these companies to get the technology, talent, as well as user and market share they need t...
How to Run a Successful Hackathon for Your Open APIs
Hackathons are exploding in popularity and open API publishers are quickly realizing the power they have to attract developers. For API publishers, hackathons represent one of the most powerful mea...
Not All APIs Are Bad
When covering the API space, it is easy to talk about the APIs that are doing it wrong. When Twitter gets ready to screw over developers, Facebook breaks something or Google changes their approach–...
Twitter Continues to Restrict Access to Our Tweets
Twitter has become a global communication platform, allowing anyone in the world to express anything, from simple everyday thoughts, to ideas that some say have the potential to be the seeds of rev...
The API Economy Welcomes Its Early Trade Wars
I’m on a roll tonight, writing about tension between API owners and consumers. After some driving around California this week, I’ve had time to ponder three recent episodes with Netflix, LinkedIn a...
What Does Your API Do?
After looking at over 6000 APIs, the most irritating thing for me when reviewing an API, is when I have to work to figure out what an API does. Many APIs just don’t communicate what their API does...
Tension Between API Owners and Consumers
We’ve had a couple of new API ecosystem flare ups in the last week. one from LinkedIn and the other from Netflix. I’m still working on my thoughts about both of these, but in the meantime I can’t h...
The 100% Open Source API Platform I Was Looking For
This is a much quicker follow-up to last week’s post, Where Is The Open Source API Platform, than I anticipated. I just finished a demo of WSO2 API Manager, a completely open-source API management ...
Launching APIs One Book At A Time
Last May, Pearson Publishing began the roll-out of their new API platform, by doing initial tests using their DK’s Eyewitness Travel Guide material, before moving on to a wider range of subjects. B...
Roundup of 20 API Service Providers in 2012
Its been over six months since I did my roundup of 11 API service providers on ProgrammableWeb. I’ve been seeing enough new entries into the space, I think its time to do another roundup, providin...
Everyone is an API Evangelist in an API-Driven Company
I’ve had some amazing feedback on my post about the demand for API and developer evangelists. One great perspective was from the team over at Iron.io, who do cloud messaging, event handling, worker...
Everyone is an API Evangelist in an API-Driven Company
I’ve had some amazing feedback on my post about the demand for API and developer evangelists. One great perspective was from the team over at Iron.io, who do cloud messaging, event han...
Where Is The Open Source API Platform?
Every couple weeks I get posts that really strike a chord with my audience, like Barack Obama Directs All Federal Agencies to Have an API, which has received 40K+ page views and 1000+ tweets. When ...
The Demand for API and Developer Evangelists
I just got off the phone with a recruiter of a major API management company, looking to recruit me as a developer evangelist, and last week I talked with two companies looking for developer evangel...
RESTGit - Deploying APIs from My Github
I have a workflow for dealing with the steady stream of ideas that fly out of my arse on a daily basis. First, I write them all down in Evernote. If an idea sticks with me and keeps nagging on me i...
Brand Control Within An API Ecosystem: Twitter Edition
Right after security, controlling your brand is the biggest concern I get from companies interested in deploying APIs. They are worried about being able to control their brand and overall message p...
iContact Developers Area Landing Page Delivers
I look at a lot of APIs, the first page you land on makes a big impression, and I can always tell when someone cares enough about developers to craft a simple, quality API Area landing page. I’ve ...
0 People Found This API Useful, Be the First!
I just wrote a post on how the iContact Developer Area delivers, and now for an API area that doesn’t quite deliver. Notice the text in the bottom corner, 0 people found this useful. - Be the fi...
Rise of Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) API Stacks
Mobile is fueling a lot of API growth right now. Or is it APIs fueling a lot of Mobile growth right now? Either way, APIs and Mobile go together like chocolate and peanut butter (or Nutella as my g...
Tracking Federal Agencies Progress on API Deployment
I’m excited about Barack Obama directing all federal agencies to have an API. The President has given federal agencies 90 days to create a page on its website, located at www.[agency].gov/digitalst...
Thoughts For Federal Agencies About to Deploy Web APIs
I wanted to publish some thoughts, on what Federal Agencies responding to the Executive Order 13571 issued on April 27, 2011, and the White House CIO’s, “Digital Government: Building a 21st Century...
Self Service vs Sales Oriented Web APIs
I’m doing some big data work. Ok it isn’t really, but feels like I should use that label. What I’m actually doing is analyzing the Twitter activity of top APIs. I have the twitter handles of 100 o...
Is Your API Big Data Ready?
Many “public APIs” are launched with well, very “public” intent–to extend the reach of the brand and platform. Many of these APIs are setup to pull data, enabling developers to use it in their appl...
Barack Obama Directs All Federal Agencies to Have an API
As a follow-up to the Executive Order 13571 issued on April 27, 2011, requiring executive departments and agencies to identify ways to use innovative technologies to streamline their delivery of se...
Provide Release Valves for API Rate Limits
In my effort to better understand API access, I’m studying how API owners control access to their APIs, with most recently being around Rate Limiting. The other day I asked, why do we limit API acc...
Healthcare Imaging API
There is a new API edition to the healthcare industry this week. lifeIMAGE launched an API that can be used by developers of healthcare applications, to enable the secure exchange of medical images...
Be a Feature in Other Platforms with an API
I talk with a lot of entrepreneurs in my travels to conferences, hackathons and online with my API evangelism. I get a lot of ideas pitched to me, asking me for feedback, and ultimately if I think ...
API Monetization: API Affiliate Network API + Google URL Shortener API
In my quest to understand the monetization opportunities via APIs, I’m studying the possibilites around tracking, and now monetization of content and URL’s served up via APIs. The other day I cons...
An API Could Be The Fancy's Kill Move Against Pinterest
Pinterest and The Fancy are locked in a deathmatch, if you hadn’t heard? Compete wrote back in February that The Fancy was poised to take over a chunk of Pinterest’s traffic with their new webstore...
An API Could Be The Fancy's Kill Move Against Pinterest
Pinterest and The Fancy are locked in a deathmatch, if you hadn’t heard? Compete wrote back in February that The Fancy was poised to take over a chunk of Pinterest’s traffic with their new webstore...
API Management Platform for Universities
I recently stumbled across the University of Washington’s Web Services area, where they are working to create a single place to learn about, discover and connect with various APIs that are availabl...
Why Do We Limit API Access for Developers?
I am putting a lot of thought into why we limit API access for developers. I understand requiring keys to access APIs, and tracking who has access to your API, so you can understand how they are u...
University Information Services with APIs
APIs are making information more accessible across many industries and sectors, but one area I haven’t seen a lot of movement, until recently, is at Universities. Last month, Harvard openly licens...
Twitter Rolls Twitter.com Back to a Server-Side Architecture
Twitter just rolled back their architectural approach for Twitter.com back to a server side implementation. If you remember back in September of 2010, Twitter rebuilt Twitter.com to use a web appl...
Twitter Rolls Twitter.com Back to a Server-Side Architecture
Twitter just rolled back their architectural approach for Twitter.com back to a server side implementation. If you remember back in September of 2010, Twitter rebuilt Twitter.com to use a web appl...
Wrapping URLs for Another Layer of Metrics in Your API
I’m documenting Twitter’s process of wrapping the URLs contained within tweets, using a shorter URL like t.co. I’m interested in understanding the opportunities around URL wrapping (aka URL shorten...
The API Driven Life of Your Facebook Mobile App
One of the best ways to explain what APIs are to someone sitting next to me on the plane is to find something the user does every day, that is driven by an API, and explain how an API drives the fu...
Lack of Pinterest API is a Lack of API Business Strategy
Here we are going into June, and I still don’t see a publicly available Pinterest API. Jay Yarow wrote in Business Insider back in February, “Pinterest’s API Is Coming Soon, And VCs Are Super Excit...
Visions from the API Economy
I’m always looking for solid examples of how more and more of our every day world is being driven by APIs. Examples I can use to help explain APIs to every-day business folks. I came across one ex...
Developer Insights Into Facebook Open Graph API Usage
Facebook provides an interface for Open Graph API developers to better understand how users are interacting with content via their applications, called Insights. With Insights you can monitor the ...
Nike Sustainable Products Index API
Nike is working on a new API as part of their Nike Better World initative. The API provides access to a materials sustainability index, which evaluates the environmental impact of materials used by...
Google Updates the API Explorer
Google just released an update to their API Explorer. Some of the new features include: Indexed history of API calls API request body editor Search box for search APIs and methods Indica...
How Are We Going to Track Private APIs?
Image Credit - Wiki Noticia Adam Duvander (@adamd) reported at ProgrammableWeb today that they rolled over 6,000 public APIs in the directory. The pace at which companies are launching public APIs...
Find Your Hackathon Venue with EventUp
I am going through all my notes from organizing the CityGrid Los Angeles Hackathon and trying to publish as many stories as I can, about how I planned and organized the hackathon. One service that...
Products and Commerce with APIs
I am really starting to see my early visions of the Internet coming together. In my mind I see an interconnected world of products and commerce, where every business has an API. APIs finally seem ...
App Center Best Practices
Last week Facebook announced a new App Center where developers can submit applications they’ve built. Like any API owner, Facebook is looking for high quality applications to list in its directory...
PeopleBrowsr API Restructures to Deliver More Meaning for Developers
Explaining to developers, what an API does, can be hard. How you describe your API, the underlying endpoints, can make or break user adoption. You shouldn’t be afraid to evolve, and keep trying to ...
Developing More Meaningful API Metrics
API metrics are an essential, but what should we measure? There are two metrics that seems to dominate discussions about success of the API industry: Number of New API Registration Number of ...
USDA Releases API for Mandatory Livestock Reporting Data
USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) has released a new, publicly available web API for its Livestock Mandatory Reporting (LMR) system, offering access to all historical LMR data, allowing u...
Business and Politics of APIs
This summer its been 2 years since I started API Evangelist. API Evangelist started as my research project into the Business of APIs, and became a full time career. While over the last two years I...
APIs Have Been Copyrightable for 22 Years
I attended a great webinar put on by the folks at Apigee last week, where they discussed APIs & Copyright. A very timely discussion with the recent API copyright decision in the EU, and from th...
API Innovation at the Edinburgh Festivals
I’m always on the hunt for API stories that capture the power of APIs, showcasing how they are transforming industries and businesses around the globe. Today, my global API monitoring platform pick...
Making Your API Accessible to the Masses
There are a lot of high value APIs emerging these days, APIs with access to essential business data, resources and intelligence. When designing your API you want to make the interface as intuitive...
The Flora and Fauna of the Twitter Ecosystem
Twitter has an innovative approach to presenting the objects that make up the Twitter Platform. They have built a field guide to Twitter Platform objects, designed like an Audubon Society field gui...
Curated API Industry News Feeds
In my Google Reader I curate hundreds of articles pulled from 600+ blogs and 25+ real-time Google Alerts, on a daily basis. Everything I star in my Google Reader or Tweet about daily ends up in my ...
APIs Help Deliver on Early Visions of the Internet
As my professional career moved online during the years between 1995 and 2000, I had numerous visions about what the World Wide Web could do for businesses. I think I shared these visions with mill...
Tools of the CityGrid Los Angeles Hackathon
We have a pretty awesome line-up of tools, platforms and APIs for people to use when building their local web and mobile apps this weekend at the CityGrid Los Angeles Hackathon: 3Scale (@3Scale) -...
Developers, Take 10 Seconds to Respond When Your API Evangelist Reaches Out
The best thing about owning API Evangelist is I get to write about whatever I want. I have full editorial control, and because of my unique view on the API space I tend to write about APIs from thr...
API as the Deliverable at the Hackathon
At most hackathons, the end goal is building a web or mobile application, using various platforms and APIs. Even though I’ve seen this evolve to data visualization, or mashing up SaaS platforms at ...
APIs Are Forever, Wait No...They Can Go Away at Any Time!!!
One of my self-appointed roles in the API industry is to shed light on, and discuss the business of APIs when many other API owners and evangelists tend to keep their strategy and business closer t...
APIs Are Forever, Wait No...They Can Go Away at Any Time!!!
One of my self-appointed roles in the API industry is to shed light on, and discuss the business of APIs when many other API owners and evangelists tend to keep their strategy and business closer t...
Will a Self-Service API Area Ever be Enough?
One of the essential ingredients of a successful API, is a self-service area to support your API developers. In my opinion this is a no-brainer. You have to have registration, documentation, code s...
Profiling API Developers
For the last couple weeks I’m neck deep in getting to know the developers who already use the CityGrid APIs. I want a better understanding of who a developer is, what kind of business they have and...
Finding Sponsors for my Local Hackathon Tour
I’m currently planning a 9 city hackathon tour, starting with the CityGrid Los Angeles Hackathon, and following up with Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, NYC, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Aus...
Why Every Education Company Needs an API (& Why Educators Should Care When One Doesn't)
When I was a tech blogger for ReadWriteWeb and API-related news broke, we writers would often shudder. “Well, you can’t use API in the headline,” the argument in the newsroom went. It’s the page-vi...
Why Every Education Company Needs an API (& Why Educators Should Care When One Doesn't)
When I was a tech blogger for ReadWriteWeb and API-related news broke, we writers would often shudder. “Well, you can’t use API in the headline,” the argument in the newsroom went. It’s the page-vi...
What Happens to Instagram API Developers After Facebook Acquisition?
I was going to write this story when I got an email from Qwerly after they got acquired by Fliptop, then after SimpleGeo was acquired by Urban Airship, then when I got the email from LinkedIn annou...
CityGrid LA Hackathon
The future of the World Wide Web is local. As we spend more of our lives on our mobile phones, local data and apps become critical in helping us find the restaurant for a lunch meeting, the bar whe...
Hacker Storytelling
A big part of API evangelism, is storytelling. Storytelling about the API, the value it delivers, and the solutions it provides. Through my own hacking on an API, engaging with developers via email...
Should You Consider API Starter Kits for 3rd Party Platforms
While assembling the building blocks for a successful API ecosystem, one of the requests I get from developers is for tools to help them build successful integrations with existing platforms like W...
Why Tech Bloggers Suck and Not APIs
I read a post over at Cloud Ave today by Martijn Linssen, Why API’s suck, and what they lack. I’ll start by saying, everything he says about APIs, can be true for some APIs, but the post has more ...
Keep Your API Area Active So Developers Feel Like Someone Is Home
The largest portion of my time as API Evangelist is spent keeping the area around an API active. Your developer’s first impression when they enter your API area is critical, and if they see signs t...
Some Positive News After Last Weeks Silicon Valley Sexism
With all the attention sexism in silicon valley has gotten, I wanted to make sure and showcase some positive news on the Hackathon front this week. There was a great article in the Oregonian out o...
Reach Corporate API Devs On LinkedIn, Independent API Devs On Twitter
Every Monday I generate a list of all new API developer who registered for the CityGrid API the week before. This list has the name and email address for each developer, and I manually go down the ...
Using Github For Your Hackathon
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to track on what gets created at hackathons. Some innovative programming occurs at these events and I’d say 98% of it is forgotten by Monday morning. I think a lot...
Learning from Sqoot: Making Hackathons Accessible to EVERYONE!
Boston API Jam organizer Sqoot just got themselves into a lot of hot water with some very sexist comments on their hackathon home page (now removed): From what I can tell, Sqoot was called out b...
Is The Blog for Your API Up to Date?
As a building block, a blog is a very valuable tool for building awareness of your API, keeping your developers informed and give a personality to the team beyond an API. My recommendation to API ...
Qualifying for the API Stack
I’m going through hundreds of APIs and curating a list of APIs, for what I’m calling the API Stack. The API Stack consists of APIs that provide clear value for developers and have demonstrated rea...
Knodes Announces $250K Fund to Invest In Their API Developers
Social Data Analyzing API Knodes has just announced a $250K startup fund that will invest in the best products, websites and applications built on top of the Knodes API platform. Knodes Social Dat...
Andreas Krohn - API Evangelist
Andreas Krohn (@andreaskrohn) first saw the potential of APIs when he in 2005 started working with enterprise web scraping solutions at Kapow Technologies (now Kapow Software). Conceptualizing the ...
Automated Documentation for REST APIs
Swagger is now Open API Definition Format (OADF) – **READ MORE** kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com This post comes from the SDK Bridge newsletter. I find so much value from what Peter and J...
Turning API Forum Posts into Blog Stories
I’m always looking for new, relevant ideas to write blog posts on for the CityGrid Developer blog. I have several topics I write about regularly including new projects I’m working on, new releases ...
Overview of 11 Places Data APIs
Since starting as API Evangelist here at CityGrid, I have been asked a couple of times how we stack up against other places APIs. So I went through the 11 other places APIs, gathering info, in an a...
Follow Terms of Service to Get Increase in Number of API Calls
kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com I am going through the Foursquare API, and found their section about how to get an increase in the number of calls you can make against the Foursquare API in...
What is API Evangelist?
kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com API Evangelist has grown beyond being just a research blog. It is time for me to update the about us page, and its time for me to tell the story of what is “...
Role of Social Media in Managing An API Ecosystem
When new users sign up for the CityGrid API, I immediately get an email with their name, email and phone number, which are required for registration. The API is self-service, and I rely on the esse...
Garrett Willkin - API Evangelist
Garrett Wilkin (@garrettwilkin) has been working with complex, high-performance, financial software systems for more than 6 years. During this time he has learned to analyze and understand large s...
Hackathons Until End of March
This is a list of hackathons coming up in the near future. I’ve only done the data entry for events until the end of March. So far there are 156 hackathons accounted for. Some pretty staggering num...
Measuring the Success of a Public Web API
I’m a member of a Google group called API Craft. There are some really smart API folks talking about everything from API deployment to API business strategies there. The other day someone in the g...
Interactive API Documentation Now Available with 3Scale
I first wrote about interactive API documentation with Posterous’s new API area in June 2011, then the follow-up when Mashery deployed their own version called I/O Docs in July 2011. Smart, intera...
CityGrid Places, Reviews, Offers and Advertising API Review
Much of the work I get as an API Evangelist starts with a review of an API area. I have evolved a way to look at API areas, and identify which building blocks are present or missing, all contributi...
Are There Enough Do-ers For This API Vision to Work?
I am an eternal optimist, especially when it comes to APIs. I really feel that APIs can decouple businesses assets and resources, making these companies much more efficient. We’ve seen the power o...
Let's Remake Libraries as Hacker Spaces and Community Innovation Centers
kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com I was reading several stories yesterday about the State of California cutting funding for libraries across the state. These kind of budget cuts really make m...
February Hackathon Schedule
Here are the hackathons I’m tracking on for February. I’m adding new ones as I find them, make sure and checkout the hackathon events calendar for more information. OPF Hackathon - A Practical App...
Where Are the Girl Hackers at Hackathons
I brought my 11 year old daughter Kaia, to the Trojan Hack at USC Friday night and Saturday, which was a new experience for her. I wouldn’t say she is on a track to be a hacker like her dad, but sh...
Should the Government Subsidize and Profit from Data Markets
kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com I’ve been having a lot of discussions with folks around the country about how to make money from data. There is a lot of data being pushed out there from fed...
Mashery Plays API Match Maker with Developer Connect
kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com One of the biggest areas around APIs I think needs attention in 2012 is more tools that focus on developers. There are plenty API services and tools focusing...
Four Potential Levels of an API Business Ecosystem
kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com I’m working on a framework for the City Grid API that helps define the different types of developers that are using our APIs, helping me understand how to be...
Review of APIs: A Strategy Guide from O'Reilly Books
kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com I had the pleasure of getting an early copy of the APIs: A Strategy Guide, Creating Channels with Application Programming Interfaces, by Daniel Jacobson(@dan...
Why We Write API Documentation
This post comes from the SDK Bridge newsletter. I find so much value from what Peter and Jonathan do over at SDK Bridge, I always have to post their newsletter here and share with all of you. I r...
Engaging My API Developers Immediately with Rapportive
kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com When new developers register for the CityGrid API, I get an email with their name and email address. I want to make sure each developer knows I’m here, and a...
API Evangelist Strategy for CityGrid
When I started with CityGrid as their API Evangelist, I wanted to make sure and share as much of my strategy with my audience here, in real-time. Of course I’ve been so busy executing I have forgot...
HTML5 Developers Dominate at the Facebook Hackathons
I just wrapped up two separate Facebook Hackathons, one in New York and the other in Boston. Both events started with presentations from various Facebook team members, demonstrating different aspe...
How Do You Make Money From Your Apps?
One of the areas of API development I’m focusing a lot of energy on in 2012 is around monetization. I want to help define the playing field, of how API owners make money from their APIs, as well as...
AT&T's new Cloud API Platform
kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com This is a guest post by Travis Spencer, a Software engineer specializing in federation, SSO, cloud computing, Web services, & enterprise architecture. T...
Email as a Content API
I think email is highly underrated as a content API. I know its not what we traditionally think of as an API, but has a lot of potential as a basic interface into an application. An example of thi...
The Secret to Amazon's Success--Internal APIs
Last year there was an accidental post from a Google employee about Google+. The internal rant was accidentally shared publicly and provides some insight into how Google approached APIs for their ...
Building Hyp3rL0cal Web and Mobile Apps
I needed a way to tell the story of the CityGrid API from the perspective of cities across the United States. The way I tell stories is through programming and hacking on APIs, so I needed a proje...
Rules for Hackathon Organizers, by Ravi Singh
kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com I just wrapped up the AT&T Mobile App Hackathon in Las Vegas. I had a great time hanging out with developers at the Palms Hotel, and watching everyone co...
Definition of Hack
kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com I’m spending a lot of time traveling around the country going to hackathons. I find myself constantly explaining what the term hack means. I’m blown away by...
Hashtag For Your Hackathon
There are a lot of reasons for throwing a hackathon, and what value you get out of a hackathon will vary depending on who you are. As I explore the hackathon phenomenom in 2012, I’m trying to trac...
API Evangelist Tour Schedule for January
kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com In 2012 I will be stepping up my coverage, participation and sponsorship of Hackathon events across the United States. In January I will be attending 9 even...
Service Offered by Local, Social, Mobile API Providers
To kick-off my role as API Evangelist at CityGrid, I took a quick walk through the world of location and places API. The CityGrid API centers around places API which provides rich local business d...