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-view-kiss-of-death. That’s not because APIs aren’t super-important or super-ubiquitous on the Web (they are both). It’s because most “normals” don’t know what they are or why they matter. They’d rather click on a story that says “101 Ways to Use Pinterest to Plan Your Wedding.”
The decision to cover APIs regularly on ReadWriteWeb and eschew stories that fall into the “[Number] Ways to Use [Hot New Social Media Tool] to [Conduct a Seasonally-Relevant Activity]” goes a long way to explain the popularity of RWW versus that of Mashable, incidentally.
Also incidentally: Pinterest has an API.
This all presents a bit of a challenge, of course, if I want to make an argument for my readers here about why APIs really matter in education. Do I frame the argument for “normals”? (Wait! HA! “Normals” don’t read Hack Education!) Do I frame it for educators? Entrepreneurs? Technologists? The answer: hopefully all of the above.
What is an API?
