api strategy

API Strategy - The Developer Perspective

Chris Ismael @craftshapeDeveloper Advocate, Mashape

Tuesday, October 1, 13

Companies should be talking about their API as a tactic in support of their broader business strategy and objectives [rather than discussing their “API Strategy,”] - Daniel Jacobson, Netflix Director of Engineering (API)


Do I need an API?

Do you need to support a second/third device?

• Do you need to add features to your product without touching the internal source code?

• Do you need partners to integrate with your product?

• Do you need to add features for a geography or market that you do not have expertise in?

• Are users or partners asking to get access to your application’s data?

• Is your site getting screen-scraped?


API to InnovateLego Mindstorms

Within weeks of the original Lego Mindstorm debut, Kekao Proudfoot reverse engineered the RCX brick (hardware) and posted his findings online. Other engineers then used his findings to create Mindstorm tools, including an operating system and a C-like programming language. Lego had the ability to stop them but instead decided to let this community flourish. 'We came to understand that this is a great way to make the product more exciting,' Lego’s Nipper said. From Geeks in Toyland By Brendan I. Koerner - Wired Magazine February 2006. - See more at: http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com//resources/why-api-as-a-strategy?p=0#sthash.vWjZYYlH.dpuf


API as Core Business

Twilio

The most common example of an API strategy is around companies who aspire to build a developer community as a new revenue source or as the foundation of their business. Twilio is an interesting example of such a company. Twilio’s strategy is to offer APIs that tap into their backend services to allow developers to build apps supporting their communication


http://www.twilio.com/

http://www.twilio.com/

API Value Chain


Aligned Business and API vision

• “Not every country in the world has the same quality of public services that we do. Our user base is anyone on the planet, so a farmer in India should be able to pick up the phone and get a heads up if a bad weather is headed his way.” - AccuWeather

• Our vision for the API is real time, localized content to the individual, in any corner of the globe, in the right language


Business Asset

• The business asset will drive developers to explore the API, not the other way around

• “What can I do with these Imgur pictures?”


Pragmatic REST


JSON vs XML• JSON

• Slimmer object model

• Easy to read

• Faster data extraction

• XML

• Richer markup and semantic options

• Tooling support

• Extendability


Security

• Identification - API keys

• Authentication - Username and Password (HTTP Basic)

• Authorization - OAuth


Make your API easy to try and use


Don’t do anything weird

• API X - “..we use custom authen-ca-on and a part of OAuth when signing requests.” (sugges-on: h;p://oauthbible.com)

• API Y - http://sampleapi.com/api?a=delete&obj=123


http://oauthbible.io

http://oauthbible.io

http://sampleapi.com/api?a=delete&obj=123




Less is more


Help developers


Focus on a developer segment


Reach out to developer communities


Hackathons - Get feedback


Hackathons - Get ideas


Get promoted


Support


Other important things

• Public versus Private API

• Analytics - measuring success

• API Management and Operation

• Quota limit and throttling

• Caching

• SLA


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