Swagger is now Open API Definition Format (OADF) -- READ MORE
This week's report was a painful one, because I did very little work last week when it came to monitoring the space, thus I was forced to play catch up this week after #APIsBerlin. It took 20 hours to produce this work, and get myself up to speed. #ouch
My Weekly API.Report represents the best of what I've read throughout the week, and is only what I personally felt should be showcased. Each news item comes with a link, and some thoughts I had after curating the piece of API related news. I'm trying to break down stories into as coherent buckets as I can, but it remains something that is ever changing for me, but ultimately I will settle on a clear definition for each of the research areas.
More on Account Management with APIs:
- Feature 108: Changing user's password via API, if user cannot login (Paid Plan) - Should be default for all user accounts.
Continuing the Acquisitions discussion from last week:
- CenturyLink Buys Database-as-a-Service Firm Orchestrate - Believe I covered this last week, but continuing the coverage.
- CenturyLink is acquiring cloud-database startup Orchestrate - Some more coverage of the Orchestrate acquisition.
Some Analytics news from last week:
- Analytics for Mobile Apps - Microsoft continuing its push into mobile.
- Integrate Eventbrite and Keen IO in 60 seconds - A great analytics integration example from Keen.io
- Crashlytics: now serving over 1 million apps - Analytics numbers out of Twitter, but on the stability front.
- Getting Started with Facebook's Analytics for Apps - Covering Facebook continued push into analytics, and how to make it work.
An interesting look at API Copyright:
- What does it mean to copyright an API? | AppScale - An interesting look at the API copyright conversation, how AppScale considers this, and a look at Google Cloud Platform.
An API Debugging story:
- JSON and XML Content Error Reporting - Deeper look into errors within the JSON and XML flowing through the API pipes.
For a change, a RAML API Definition story:
- RAML Founder Talks About the API Industry: Governance, Technolog - A look at the API definition views of RAML.
Couple of API Deployment nuggets:
- Sails API development (1/2): Datalayer -models, connections, waterline, API -blueprint, and related - API deployment with Sails. Something I would like to play with more.
- Rise of APIs Drives Evolution of Microframeworks - Lots of frameworks out there. Almost too many for me to track on.
Three API Deprecation stories:
- Announcement: Facebook Deprecates API v1.0 on April 30th - Some upcoming Facebook deprecation information, interestingly from AWS.
- API Lifecycle Retirement Stage: A History of Major Public API Retirements - A nice walkthrough of the recent history of public API deprecation.
- Bye-bye, YouTube Data API v2 - The deprecation of the last Youtube API.
The API Design tips for the week:
- api-standards/api-style-guide.md at master · paypal/api-standards · GitHub - An API style guide from Paypal. They are working hard to provide leadership in this area. A style guide is something I'd like to see published from every API. I think it helps APIs form a cohesive vision of how to design APIs across an organization. Eventually I will even publish my own, based upon what I've found.
- The data, the hypermedia and the documentation - A great overview of API definitions, and design tooling and formats from API Handyman.
- HTTP Verbs Demystified: PATCH, PUT and POST - Some verb wisdom from Cloud Elements.
- Introduction to Apiary: Overview of Apiary and How to Create APIs - A simple intro to the world of API design through the Apiary lens.
- Api Design Anti-Patterns - Some good API design tips.
From API Evangelism world:
- Dev. Evangelism 101: How to Sponsor a Hackathon - Webinar Report - Some hackathon advice from the masters.
- Hi! I'm Graham McBain, the New Evangelist! - Context.io gets a second evangelists. Welcome Graham. Hope you realize you are working with one of the masters.
Busy week for API Events, because #APIsBerlin ya know!!!
- Designing an API for Developer Happiness - The aim should always be developer happiness...
- Api Design Anti-Patterns - Some good API design tips.
- APIs as building blocks - Yes they are!
- API Strategy & Practice / APIDays Kicks Off in Berlin | ProgrammableWeb - Thanks Mark!
- Predictive APIs at APIdays Berlin
- Decoupled APIs through microservices - A look at the world of microservices in Berlin.
- PAPIs.io Connect — PAPIs.io — The Predictive APIs and Apps Conference - A new API event I'm tracking on.
- SmartBear Keynote Session: Visualizing + Virtualizing APIs - Some of the API lifecycle thinking coming out of SmartBear.
- DPLAfest 2015: That's a Wrap! - I sure wish I could have been here. It keeps conflicting with @APIStrat. One of these years I will go.
- Filepicker at BoxDev 2015 - Lots of news out of BoxDev this week.
- Glue 2015 – May 20-21, Broomfield, Colorado – 1 Month to Gluecon! - Just a reminder that Gluecon is coming up. Get your tickets and room, and see you in the taproom!
- 4 Cities, 4 Awesome APIs: World Tour Feature - Nordic APIs kicks off their world tour.
The API Management news I tracked on:
- api-standards/api-style-guide.md at master · paypal/api-standards · GitHub - An API style guide from Paypal. They are working hard to provide leadership in this area. A style guide is something I'd like to see published from every API. I think it helps APIs form a cohesive vision of how to design APIs across an organization. Eventually I will even publish my own, based upon what I've found.
- Ecosystem Manager - We all could use an ecosystem manager.
- 451 Research: Dell Boomi Extends Its iPaaS with an API Lifecycle Management Release - Knd of the enterprise analyst view I don't usually care about, but I'm trying to understand the Dell Boomi approach better.
- Analyse your API calls - Adding some more layers to the Restlet world. Evolving more into management.
- Introducing Box Developer Edition: A fundamentally new way to build on the Box platform - Box is stepping up their whole developer platform game, and really leveraging their enterprise relationships, and extending that to their developer community.
- Quantifying A Minimum Viable API Footprint Definition As Real APIs.json Driven Portal · - My minimum definition of API operations that I think all APIs should follow.
- Announcing the Data.gov Help Desk - it is good to see a dedicated support desk emerge at Data.gov.
- API Management for Everyone - An interesting 100K of API management, with a little history of how we got here.
- The Convergence of API Management and iPaaS: A New Perspective - I prefer to call iPaaS, API reciprocity, because iPaaS is too much like ETL and void of human touch, but it is interesting to see it continue merging with API management goals.
Couple of API Monetization related items:
- Amazon Releases AWS Margins – And They Really Are High - When you have the experience in monetization that Amazon has, it is easy to really dial it in. This is more about the commerce side, but applies across the company.
- Understanding Cloud Pricing Part 2 - Local SSD - Google continuing to get a handle on their pricing, bringing up to par with AWS.
A valuable API Monitoring feature released this week:
- Create Runscope Tests Instantly with New Import Test Feature: Support for Swagger, Postman Collection and HAR Files - I was able to setup my tests for almost 30 APIs in 3 minutes by importing using Swagger.
The API News roundup of roundups:
- Civic Awesome: Open Data in the News for the Week of April 20, 2015 - The news from over at Socrata. I will let you go through yourself.
- This week in API land, episode 6 - The continued news coverage from over at Restlet.
- Weekly API.Report For April 20th, 2015 · - And my report from last week. Paying it forward.
- Amazon Apps & Services Blog – Week in Review for April 13th - The news from over at AWS.
- API News Rundown 4.20.15 - The API metrics team covering the space.
The API Performance news:
- Regional Cloud API Test Locations and Cloud Performance - Adding some regions, because you need to be able to test performance from many perspectives.
When it comes to API Reciprocity:
- Talend – Implementation in the ‘real world': what is this blog all about? - I always like the real world examples, especially when it comes to reciprocity.
- Image Metadata Manipulation Using CloverETL - Images are huge part of the reciprocity game, and mastering the metadata layer is crucial.
- Warewolf is great for Business Analysts too - Pushing API reciprocity tooling into the hands of analysts.
- The Convergence of API Management and iPaaS: A New Perspective - I prefer to call iPaaS, API reciprocity, because iPaaS is too much like ETL and void of human touch, but it is interesting to see it continue merging with API management goals.
Keeping the increasing number of API Testing stories by themselves:
- Testing Challenges Associated with Machine Learning APIs - As world of API testing grows, so does drilling down into the testing challenges for specific verticals.
- Automated testing of REST-services - Some automation of testing insight.
- Chakram Offers Scalable REST API Testing Framework - Adding Chakram to my company list.
- Create Runscope Tests Instantly with New Import Test Feature: Support for Swagger, Postman Collection and HAR Files - I was able to setup my tests for almost 30 APIs in 3 minutes by importing using Swagger.
- Regional Cloud API Test Locations and Cloud Performance - Adding some regions, because you need to be able to test performance from many perspectives.
As I get my Github monitoring more fine tuned, you'll see more API Tools like this:
- lucybot/jammin · GitHub - An interesting tool out of Lucybot for deploying and integrating with APIs.
Specifcally API Visualizations:
- Why exploring big data is hard - its wicked hawd.
- Announcing the public beta of Mohiomap for Box - Ok, this is cool.
How to manage Applications:
- Introducing custom metadata types: the app configuration engine for Force.com - Some interesting app config options from SalesForce.
- Introducing New Post Install Notification and Experience for Google Apps Marketplace - And some interesting app flow from Google Apps.
- ServiceNow Entices Devs with New Enterprise App Store - I am seeing more application galleries / stores / marketplaces focused on the enterprise lately. Seems to be latest trend.
Some Authentication items:
- How to Authenticate Using the Konekt REST API - Authentication over in IoT land.
- A final farewell to ClientLogin, OAuth 1.0 (3LO), AuthSub, and OpenID 2.0 - Google deprecating a number of legacy Auth approaches for their platform.
- Passwordless SMS Authentication Using Xamarin - Some mobile auth goodness from Twilio.
World of Automobiles:
- AT&T adds 684,000 connected cars in Q1 - Cellular baked into our cars is the future. Lots of growth from AT&T on this front.
- Fleetio Launches Fleet Management API - From individual automobile to the fleet management.
- Fleetio offering third-party software integration - The original announcement for the previous PW story.
- What if On-Demand Roadside Assistance Apps Could Help Prevent Some Vehicle Breakdowns? - Adjacent market to the world of autos. It isn't just about the car itself. It is for the whole experience.
A single Banking story:
- Infosys plans at least three new banking software products under Finacle - Some new API driven banking efforts to watch.
A browser plugin story:
- Nagra launches new Chrome browser plug-in for pay-TV - Seeing waves of different browser extension in various verticals, driven by APIs.
From the world of Business of APIs:
- Four Ways APIs Can be used to Gain Competitive Advantage - The continued selling of APis to the business world.
- API Is The Social Network Of Technology - I guess I follow the analogy. It kind of works.
- The Developer Opportunity That Exists In The Small Business World - Intuit reminding us of the opportunity in the small business world. Its not all enterprise.
- The DIY Approach to Legacy Modernization - OpenLegacy is all about the evolution of our legacy infrastructure.
- How APIs Drive Business Innovation - Vox Pop - Some great insight from Matthew.
Another CAD story this week:
- Onshape, API and cloud architectures - Seeing a lot more CAD API activity in recent months.
Watching Cameras:
- The Raspberry Pi Action Camera - A cool little Raspberry Pi hack.
- Evercam Goes Open Source - I spoke with the Evercam team about this decision. My advice is this move is essential to the company achieving the global scale they are looking for.
Three Careers items this week:
- Ecosystem Manager - We all could use an ecosystem manager.
- Senior Software Architect at Irmat Pharmacy (New York, NY) - Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) - could be the job for you.
- Full Stack API Developer - We should all be full stack developers i this day and age.
Certification in the real-time space:
- Introducing the Firebase Experts Program - Nice. I like the idea of having an experts program. With is the showcasing side of an API certification or partner program.
Hard to figure out what to break up into Cities or government:
- Bits Blog: Smart City Technology May Be Vulnerable to Hackers - Glad this type of security discussion is getting the high profile coverage. Has to continue forever.
- White Paper Smart Cities Applications - A white paper on cities I've queued up for reading this week.
- Opening data for stronger cities: The 'What Works Cities' initiative - yes. yes. yes. Not that it will solve all of our problems, but definitely essential for us to move forward.
- White Paper: Retrospective Benefit-Cost Analysis - A look at the cost saving aspects of open data and running a city.
- Why I'm Betting on Cities and Data - Some interesting details.
The companion City Government section:
- Data is Small: On The Table Conversation on Data and Society - More city data discussions.
- A $42 Million Bet on Cities and the Power of Data - Lots of investment in city data efforts these days.
- Real-world Civic Tech Strategies - They are always good at sharing some wisdom.
- Introducing Data Lens for the Open Data Portal - Putting this under visualizations. Interesting way to quickly view data.
- Chicago at the White House Tech Meetup - Crossover between city and federal government.
- White Paper: Retrospective Benefit-Cost Analysis - A look at the cost saving aspects of open data and running a city.
A smaller Cloud Computing section this week:
- Microsoft announces Azure Service Fabric cloud platform for building microservices - Of course. You have to cover all the bases: mobile, IoT, and microservices.
- TechRepublic – How ElasticHosts competes with the likes of AWS, Azure and Google - I focus a lot on AWS, Microsoft, and Google, and sometimes forget there are other players.
We don't see many Comments related stories:
- Discussing Disqus and DataSift - DataSift has some very interesting insight into content cross sections of the Internet.
On the Commerce front:
- API2Cart API Method Mines Magento Abandoned Cart Data - Ok, this is pretty cool. Some cross platform insight.
- Oct8ne Releases API Access to its Coviewing Technology - Not sure I fully understand coviewing, but going to explore and play with more, so that I do.
I've been waiting for this Conference Call related story for a while:
- Callr Eliminates Conference PINs for Good: Don't Punch Your Phone, or PINs Anymore - I am going to use this. This is something I a confounded is still even a thing that needs solving.
A shorter Containers section too:
- Docker Tutorial 6 – Dockerfile (Part 1) - Just keeping tabs on the good Docker tutorials.
- Heavybit Show & Tell: Iron.io's DockerWorker - Love the container stories out of Iron.io lately.
- Tips for Deploying NGINX (Official Image) with Docker - I am going to move off Apache and to NGINX soon. One thing at a time.
- OpenShift 3 Beta Demo Part 2: Deploying MySQL Using a Docker Image - I use MySQL, so tracking on tutorials like this to help me optimize.
Content delivery via APIs:
- Google Now Provides Marketers API for Advanced Browser-Based Content Distribution - Google Now is on my list to play with, so I am cataloguing all stories I find.
- How APIs are Improving Publishing Efficiency - Yeah, yeah. Efficiency.
Some Copyright, with overlap above:
- 6 Current Copyright Cases More Important Than Blurred Lines - A couple cases I haven't heard of, and happy to see the Oracle v Google case on here.
- What does it mean to copyright an API? | AppScale - An interesting look at the API copyright conversation, how AppScale considers this, and a look at Google Cloud Platform.
A single Crowdsourcing story:
- The API Briefing: Making a Difference One Microtask at a Time - Interesting approaches out of the federal government.
Handful of Data stories:
- Liaison Alloy Platform Redefines Integration and Data Management - A platform I am reviewing a little more to better understand what they do.
- Creating “Addictive” New Applications with Legacy Data - Some wisdom on app development from Socrata.
- DataHero Announces Dual Axis Charts - DataHero keeps coming out with some useful features.
- The log: The lifeblood of your data pipeline - Logging is a constant vein in the overall API and app dev discussion.
- Google Cloud Dataflow Eases Large-Scale Data Processing - Some day I will get time to play with the data offerings out of Google more.
- R workloads on Azure Batch - A little R love over at Microsoft.
- The top 3 qualities of a great data scientist - Selling the data scientist field. I would like to see other data driven careers emerge.
Breaking out Data Rights by itself this week:
- ICO: Samaritans Radar failed to comply with Data Protection Act - Going to learn more about what happened here. What jurisdiction this is, and details of the Data Protection Act.
The Database stories from the week:
- The Simplest Federated Database That Could Possibly Work - I am big Smallest Federated Wiki fan, need more time to find actual uses for it. This just might be it!!
- CenturyLink is acquiring cloud-database startup Orchestrate - Some more coverage of the Orchestrate acquisition.
- OpenShift 3 Beta Demo Part 2: Deploying MySQL Using a Docker Image - I use MySQL, so tracking on tutorials like this to help me optimize.
Hard to stand out in Documents this week, with BoxDev:
- Docs, Sheets and Forms add-ons now open to all developers - I am mostly tracking on because of the Forms and Sheets aspect, but overall this window into Google Docs integration is pretty interesting layer of their ecosystem.
Three Drone related items to share:
- Switzerland will be testing out drone delivery this summer - Everyone is getting in on the game.
- A small drone was found on the roof of the Japanese prime minister's office — and it was laced with radiation - Scary shit.
- This Drone Video Of Dutch Flower Fields Will Give You The Touch Of Spring You Needed - Some more of the humanization, and friendly usage of Drones.
More weather, but also Drupal related:
- City Weather for Drupal (Drupal) - A useful weather implementation for Drupal.
Education from the master:
- The Invented History of 'The Factory Model of Education' - Kick ass piece from the queen of EdTech.
Interesting Email concept:
- Introducing Email Assurance for MailChimp - Email assurance eh?
We need more Encryption!!!
- The FBI Keeps Demanding Impossible Solutions to Its Encryption Problem - Fuck you FBI. Yeah I said it. We need strong encryption, not weaker.
Tracking on Energy:
- Governments and utilities are in a rush to install smart meters and realize savings - A couple weeks ago there was the opposite story, but I am tracking on it all, in for the long haul.
Selling to the Enterprise:
- A Platform for the Digital Enterprise - Box opening up their doors to devs to help deliver value to their enterprise customers.
- Box announces Developer Edition, giving developers a new platform for enterprise applications - Another view from the outside on the recent Box release.
- Introducing New Tools and Services to Transform the Enterprise - Another take out of Box.
- ServiceNow Entices Devs with New Enterprise App Store - I am seeing more application galleries / stores / marketplaces focused on the enterprise lately. Seems to be latest trend.
- Improving Enterprise Business Process Management Systems: Architecting #cloud-friendly application architecture #apparch (inspired by #microservices) - Yes Microservices are the answer. ;-)
- A REST API Is Not Enough for Enterprise Mobile App Integration (Part 4 of 4) - Someday we will move beyond REST, but for now web APIs are it.
- Using the Salesforce1 Platform as an Enterprise MBaaS - Remember, SalesForce is an MBaaS too!
Big Environment data.
- Announcing the NOAA Big Data Project - Some very important data on AWS. I will have to audit everything that is available on AWS data.
Replay, but this time for Events:
- How To Use The Twitter API To Find Events - I do this. I find events, and track on their attendees and conversations with Twitter.
An Excel + Wordpress feature:
- WordPress Dynamic Tables, Input from XLS/MySQL/CSV (Tables) - An interesting data approach for Wordpress.
Handful of Federal Government items:
- Which federal agencies haven't released public indexes of their data? - This was going to be one of my next steps in my open data in federal government work. Thanks Sunlight.
- The API Briefing: Making a Difference One Microtask at a Time - Interesting approaches out of the federal government.
- Announcing the Data.gov Help Desk - it is good to see a dedicated support desk emerge at Data.gov.
- The difference between 18F and USDS - I get 18F, but didnt know much about USDS. Thanks Ben.
- 19 reasons why technologists don't want to work at your government agency - Nice. Ben would know.
The Financial news:
- Bitcoin regulation is coming to New York - I bet this gets used as model for other states.
- Infosys plans at least three new banking software products under Finacle - Some new API driven banking efforts to watch.
Import Gender related studies:
- Preview: Gender Gap in Science - This was a great talk at APIDaysBerlin / APIStrat. Going to play with more.
The Hackathon news for the week:
- #Flashhacks in Berlin - April 2015 - FlashHacks Berlin: Open Data For Good (Berlin) - Meetup - An event to look at in Berlin.
- The ACLU of Illinois at OpenGov Hack Night - Makes sense. Good to see.
- SpeedHack Berlin: Equally Unpredictable And Fun - Go!
- How to Spur Innovation Inside Your Company with an Internal Event - Internal events are the next wave of hackathons.
- Dev. Evangelism 101: How to Sponsor a Hackathon - Webinar Report - Some hackathon advice from the masters.
An almost Hacker Storytelling piece:
- How StoryCorps.me Was Built Using The Wordpress API and PhoneGap - Not quite hacker storytelling for me, but close enough. Interesting look behind.
When it comes to Healthcare:
- How waived EHR data fees could make interoperability a 'commodity' - I didn't know there was EHR data fees? Something to watch how it plays out.
- IBM Expands Footprint into Healthcare Big Data Analytics - HealthITAnalytics - Linkis.com - Can you say 1000lb pound gorilla?
Because I love History:
- Maps Mania: Why Your Street Has That Name - This is cool.
Understanding the History of Compute:
- Why you should visit the Living Computer Museum in Seattle - Adding to my history stack. Thanks Pete!
A simple How To:
- How to Send a Tweet with SMS (Send and Receive Tweets Using SMS: Part 2) - Some pretty basic 101 stuff. Good to see.
Microsoft getting the IDE world in order:
- Getting started with GIT, Visual Studio, and BitBucket - Microsoft embracing Git and BitBucket in the IDE.
- Node.js Tools 1.0 on GitHub and VMs Available - And Github and Node.js.
International moves:
- Splunk Cloud Journey Continues with International Launch at AWS Summit - Splunk going international.
Internet of Things wasn't important to me this week:
- How APIs Are Enabling IoT Automation Once Thought Impossible - Ok.
- Securing The Internet of Things: Privacy, Data and Device Control - Thanks Konekt, for helping us in this discussion.
Investments and the markets this week:
- Apigee makes Wall Street debut with $87 million IPO - San Jose Mercury News - It didn't make as much news as I thought it would, but congrats. Glad they did it. Curious to see where it goes. I don't think the market is any real measurement of API management, but is one way to look at it.
- Translation platform Gengo attracts $5.4 mln - Good for them. Will keep an eye on.
On the Legal side of things:
- Reporters Database - This is pretty important. These people are the human interface to much of the legal data being produced in the US.
- We Can't Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership | WIRED - What a fucked up and stupid way to look at your product. If you take this stance you will kill the brand.
- A bill to fix America's most dangerous computer law - Will keep an eye on.
When it comes to Libraries:
- A Look at the Empire State Digital Network - A nice look at the good work out of DPLA.
- DPLA and HathiTrust Partnership Supports Open E-Book Programs - More partnerships for DPLA.
- Libraries announces winners for CODE+ART Student visualization contest - Code+Art. Yeah.
Keeping things Local:
- YC-Backed Rickshaw Provides An API For Local Deliveries - I am sure they will get gobbled up by Uber or Amazon.
Is Location being recorded right?
- Validating Mobile Ad Location Data at Factual - Interesting. Wonder how much fraud occurs in this layer.
Logging of everything:
- The log: The lifeblood of your data pipeline - Logging is a constant vein in the overall API and app dev discussion.
- Why Elasticsearch is Suitable for Application Log Analytics - Another use for ElasticSearch.
The area of Machine Learning:
- AlchemyAPI and NodeRED on Bluemix - IBM exploring their new AlchemyAPI acquisition.
- Testing Challenges Associated with Machine Learning APIs - As world of API testing grows, so does drilling down into the testing challenges for specific verticals.
A single Mapping item that caught my eye:
- Citymaps Seeks to Disrupt the Mapping API Business Model - Add Citymaps to my monitoring.
Two Messaging related stories:
- WhatsApp starts rolling out voice calling on iOS - Not sure why I track on WhatsApp, I guess it is because I want them to get their API shit together.
- How to Send a Tweet with SMS (Send and Receive Tweets Using SMS: Part 2) - Some pretty basic 101 stuff. Good to see.
The popular area of Microservices:
- The Hidden Costs of Microservices - An interesting take on the dark side of microservices.
- Improving Enterprise Business Process Management Systems: Architecting #cloud-friendly application architecture #apparch (inspired by #microservices) - Yes Microservices are the answer. ;-)
- Hubble Gets Lean With Microservices and Iron.io - A cool case study out of Iron.io. As I said before, they are rocking the storytelling when it comes to containers and microservices.
- Microsoft announces Azure Service Fabric cloud platform for building microservices - Of course. You have to cover all the bases: mobile, IoT, and microservices.
Keeping an eye on everything Mobile:
- Analytics for Mobile Apps - Microsoft continuing its push into mobile.
- Box Outs Developer Edition And New Mobile SDKs: How Will This Help Businesses - A look at the mobile view of Box's latest releases.
- Universal Mind Provides mBaaS Example App on Kinvey - I like example apps. Will be exploring as I have time.
- Box unveils Developer Edition, new mobile SDKs - Another look at the Box mobile offerings.
- Introducing New Box Mobile SDKs: Building on iOS and Android - And Box's own take on their new mobile SDKs.
- A REST API Is Not Enough for Enterprise Mobile App Integration (Part 4 of 4) - Someday we will move beyond REST, but for now web APIs are it.
- Passwordless SMS Authentication Using Xamarin - Some mobile auth goodness from Twilio.
- Using the Salesforce1 Platform as an Enterprise MBaaS - Remember, SalesForce is an MBaaS too!
In the Note space:
- OneNote API Strategy | Interview with Microsoft Principal API Architect - I was talking to him in Tegel airport right before I curated this, so figured I'd include.
Open Data conversation blew up this week, with some fresh research published:
- OpenCorporates Heralds Open Data as a Public Good - Big fan of what OpenCorporates is up to, and a great story from Mark.
- Assessing Views on Open Government Data - First in long line of open government data analysis this week, because of these reports coming out.
- Launch Of Enhanced Public Plans Data Website - An important precedent for the public sector. Retirement is a huge financial burden for municipalities, and transparency can only help.
- Half empty or half full? Mixed reactions to Pew research on open data and open government - Alex's take on the research out of Pew.
- Inside the Open Data Barometer - Socrata would know.
- Introducing Data Lens for the Open Data Portal - Putting this under visualizations. Interesting way to quickly view data.
- My Open Data Panel At APIDaysBerlin and APIStrat This Friday In Berlin · - This was a great conversation. I want to make time for a wrap-up of what we discussed once the video comes out.
- Announcing the NOAA Big Data Project - Some very important data on AWS. I will have to audit everything that is available on AWS data.
- 15 key insights from the Pew Internet and Life Project on the American public, open data and open government - A ice exective summary from Alex on the Pew research.
- Americans' Views on Open Government Data - The original report.
- New Pew study: Public is optimistic about open government and open data - Sunlights take on the Pew research.
- Open data impact map
- Opening data for stronger cities: The 'What Works Cities' initiative - yes. yes. yes. Not that it will solve all of our problems, but definitely essential for us to move forward.
Open Source news makes me happy:
- Evercam Goes Open Source - I spoke with the Evercam team about this decision. My advice is this move is essential to the company achieving the global scale they are looking for.
From the Outdoors:
- RIDB API Digitizes US Parklands and Recreation Activities - Some more great coverage by Mark on the RIDB API.
Partners are important, lets see what happened:
- Introducing Varnish Plus Open Partners - Varnish showcasing their partners.
- Zomato, Uber Tie up to Connect Eateries - Interesting partnership in India. We are seeing similar movements in some US cities.
- Announcing Box Connectors For Appcelerator Arrow - Some more Box news, but coming from their partners.
- Introducing the Box Platform Partner Program - Lots of news because of BoxDev. Adding them to list of API partner programs I track on.
- DPLA and HathiTrust Partnership Supports Open E-Book Programs - More partnerships for DPLA.
- Introducing the Firebase Experts Program - Nice. I like the idea of having an experts program. With is the showcasing side of an API certification or partner program.
- Sell more products automatically with Gumroad + ConvertKit - I use Gumroad for publishing, so keep track of the options available to me.
- Meet On SoundCloud Premier Partner Star Talk Radio's Jeff Simons - SoundCloud always has at least one partner to showcase each week.
ON the Patent front:
- Last Week Tonight With John Oliver: Patents - Man this shit is so broken.
- US Patent Issued to eBay on April 21 for "System and Method to Test Executable... - Another pretty crazy patent on APIs. This is already being done by so many companies.
Two Payment stories:
- Flattr developer update #5 – What is left behind - Thought this was interesting because of the stories of what they are shutting down.
- Preview subscription changes - Previews of payments and invoicing are always good.
A single Podcast to tune into:
- Introducing The Bitly Tech Podcast - A podcast I will be tuning into.
The world of Politics:
- An Incredibly Insecure Voting Machine - Man we are so fucked.
- Explosion In Tech Lobbying - Of course there is.
And specifically the Politics of APIs:
- Processing Twitter Data from Gnip using DataSift - Moving forward after the shutting down of DataSift's access.
Physical world of Printing:
- ECi FMAudit Teams Up with PrintReleaf for Reforestation Effort - An interesting print API press release.
- How Efficient Printer Management Can Improve Your Government Agency - I wrote a similar story a while back.
Important area of Privacy:
- Examining The Right to be Forgotten - DataSift is perpetuating some really important conversations. I wonder if their position fed into them not being at the Twitter table anymore?
- Office 365 Management Activity API Aids Transactions Visibility - API providing transparency. I like to see, especially from Microsoft.
- Baltimore police have used secret cellphone interceptors more than 25,000 times - We have to use data and storytelling to reign in the police in the US. They are way out of fucking control.
- Securing The Internet of Things: Privacy, Data and Device Control - Thanks Konekt, for helping us in this discussion.
Protection, for lack of a better term at this time:
- Policy and product updates aimed at combating abuse - Thoughts and recent moves from Twitter on protecting users.
- Twitter testing feature that automatically identifies and limits abusive tweets - The verge view of the Twitter moves.
- Twitter's Gasoline - A nice look from Mike on Twitters dumbass moves.
- Bits Blog: Twitter Expands Direct Messaging - At the same time Twitter moves to protect users, they simultaneously expose them further. Man oh man.
Keeping things Real-Time:
- Plotting Realtime Data of Financial Performance with NVD3 - Always valuable real-time tutorials out of PubNub.
- End-to-end Testing with firebase-server - Probably should put under testing, but since Firebase is real-time, I think it makes sense here.
- Publishing Temperature Data in Realtime with Tessel Climate - More real-time tutorials, but leaning into IoT land.
- Streamdata.io Service Turns APIs from Standard to Streaming - Had the pleasure of meeting the StreamData.io team in Berlin this last week.
You should Reclaim Your Domain:
- Domain of One's Own and WordPress Networks - Domain of One's own rocking it.
A single tale of Regulation:
- Bitcoin regulation is coming to New York - I bet this gets used as model for other states.
Scraping of all the good things:
- Frontera: The Brain Behind the Crawls - A look behind ScrapingHub.
- Introducing crawl history & error reports - Some helpful insight into crawling at Kimono.
SDK items:
- Brightcove Player SDK Architecture - I like it when companies share the architecture behind their SDKs.
- Live Playback with the SDKs - More for the video world, but interesting.
- ProfitBricks Releases Ruby SDK for REST API - Guess I will include this one too.
- Google Cardboard Update Includes SDK Enhancements - This just cracks me up that it is a real thing, let alone moving forward.
Search over at Google:
- Google Enables JSON Search History Downloads - I download mine, and I am playing with.
- Google now lets you export your search history - Another take. I wish there was an API.
The important Security discussions from last week:
- A Javascript-based DDoS Attack as seen by Safe Browsing - I haven't thought much about JS-based attacks.
- Algorithmia Security Bounty Program - A bounty program out of Algrothimia.
- An Incredibly Insecure Voting Machine - Man we are so fucked.
- Security Breaches Lead to Bug Bounty Proliferation - Definitely backs what I am seeing.
- IT Innovators: Creating a Free Web Service to Help Businesses and Individuals Know When They've Been Hacked - An interesting call for web services in the name of security.
- Microsoft expands its bug bounty programs to include Azure, Sway, and Project Spartan - Microsoft extending its bounty program too.
- Bits Blog: Smart City Technology May Be Vulnerable to Hackers - Glad this type of security discussion is getting the high profile coverage. Has to continue forever.
- SAIC & Splunk as a Security Intelligence Platform - Hadn't thought of Splunk as this, but it makes sense.
- Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia sites - Wikimedia is always looking out for us. Needs to approach diversity too! ;-)
- Securing The Internet of Things: Privacy, Data and Device Control - Thanks Konekt, for helping us in this discussion.
- TeamSnap Increases Security with New Password Policy - A new password policy to look at.
A sinlge Sensor story in NYT:
- Bits Blog: The Sensor-Rich, Data-Scooping Future - Yay. Not the future I want.
The APIs who Showcase their integrations:
- How CowBoom Streamlines Merchandising With BestBuy's APIs - A showcase from the BestBuy API ecosystem.
- Picking up Slack at Panic - Showcase in the Slack ecosystem. Man I can't wait to hack more here.
- Building A Salesforce Powered Call Center with Twilio TaskRouter - Interesting showcase of platform integrations with SalesForce and Twilio.
From the Spreadsheets world over at Google:
- Docs, Sheets and Forms add-ons now open to all developers - I am mostly tracking on because of the Forms and Sheets aspect, but overall this window into Google Docs integration is pretty interesting layer of their ecosystem.
A single, distrurbing Surveillance item:
- FaceAffinity API Provides Personality Metadata - Wow. Disturbingly fucked up shit.
Translation is important space:
- Translation platform Gengo attracts $5.4 mln - Good for them. Will keep an eye on.
Microsoft dominating on the Transparency front for a change:
- Microsoft addresses cloud control and transparency concerns - Another take on the Microsoft transparency. I'm sure its just PR regurgitation, but still.
- Microsoft addresses concerns over cloud control, transparency - Another take on the Microsoft transparency. I'm sure its just PR regurgitation, but still.
- Supporting Transparency and Participation in Internet Governance - Some tooling and projects I am adding to my monitoring as part of online transparency efforts.
The University stories:
- University API and Domains Workshop - Come see me talk at BYU in June!
- BlueLight Chooses Bandwidth API Platform for Added Campus Safety - An interesting campus solution to physical security of students and faculty.
A Validation item from Twilio:
- Validate Phone Numbers in Ruby using the Lookup API - Validation tools from the Twilio ecosystem.
An important API Version release:
- API v0.4 released: power search features (+ more data) - OpenCorprates recent version release.
Other Visualizations from the week:
- Emptied reservoirs in California - Another look at the water situation in California
- A Look at the Empire State Digital Network - A nice look at the good work out of DPLA.
- Introducing Data Lens for the Open Data Portal - Putting this under visualizations. Interesting way to quickly view data.
- DataHero Announces Dual Axis Charts - DataHero keeps coming out with some useful features.
- Libraries announces winners for CODE+ART Student visualization contest - Code+Art. Yeah.
- The 14 best data visualization tools - Adding relevant ones to my tool stack.
Keeping an eye on the Watch space:
- Slack brings its app to the Apple Watch (video) - Slack getting into the Apple Watch game.
Monitoring the Weather:
- City Weather for Drupal (Drupal) - A useful weather implementation for Drupal.
- Weather Api's: The Basic Facts - Another look at the Weather API world.
A single Wordpress item:
- WordPress Dynamic Tables, Input from XLS/MySQL/CSV (Tables) - An interesting data approach for Wordpress.
That concludes my report on what I read last week across the API space. I'm still working on pulling together a summary e-newsletter version, allowing people to get an executive summary of what I thought was important from the week--I am hoping it will be available next week. I'm also going to auto-generate some visualizations, and summary counts for each week. I'd like to see a tag cloud, and overall counts to help me understand the scope of news I cover each week.
If you know of something I missed, feel free to email or tweet at me, and make sure I know about your company, and have a link to your blog RSS. If you don't tell the story and share, the world will never know it happened.
It is a good time to be tracking on the API space--lots going on!
Updated November 27, 2015: Links were updated as part of switch from Swagger to OADF (READ MORE)
