I'm rapidly expanding the areas I track on in the world of APIs, trying to understand the myriad ways APIs are influencing interoperability between companies and platforms, being applied alongside voice or used in automobiles, our homes, and beyond.
One area I'm currently researching, is on API usage in the very hyped world of data. I'm wading through numerous startups, looking for innovative approaches to data + APIs. One specific area of this research, that I'm hoping to have published soon is around API driven data analytics.
To provide a quick glimpse into what I mean when I talk about the future of data analytic APIs, I wanted to showcase two startups that resemble what I see coming down the pipes:
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ZoomData - Zoomdata is the next generation data visualization system that easily allows companies and people to understand data visually in real time. |
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Polychart - Polychart is a data analytics and visualization company that helps turn numbers and statistics into charts and dashboards to drive more innovative and accurate decision-making. |
While these companies are providing pretty straightforward analytic solutions that run in the cloud, what I find innovative is their flexible data sources. Much like reciprocity providers are evolving ETL (Extract Transfer Load), moving beyond just internal data sources, to API driven cloud sources--this new breed of analytics providers are allowing you to visualize your data, directly from the cloud platforms where the data is generated and stored.
As more of our personal and professional lives move into the clouds, we are going to need new ways to visualize and find insight across the huge amounts of data we are generating daily, directly from these sources. This new breed of API driven analytic companies are going to help us get there.
Look for more research published on this in the near future.
