open apis and the semantic web 2011

Open APIs & the Semantic Web: State of the Market

John Musser, ProgrammableWeb@johnmusser

SemTech 2011

Introduction

ProgrammableWeb.com• API & mashup directory• News, community, dev tools• 3,300 Web APIs • 5,800 mashups

Open APIs: State of the Market

• The big picture• The business of open APIs• Design and technology• Trends

Open APIs: Why bother?

• Make money 60% of all listings on eBay.com added via their APIs

• Save money SmugMug saves > $500K/year with Amazon S3 Storage

• Build brand Google Maps 300% growth vs 20% MapQuest

• Move to the cloud Over 50% of all transactions via their API

• Go anywhere Netflix now available on over 200 devices

Open APIs: Growth is accelerating

Total APIs over time

APIs: some very competitive markets

Number of APIs, Top 15 Categories

Based on directory of 3,200 web APIs listed at ProgrammableWeb, May 2011

Semantic APIs on the open web

Where’s the semantic web in here?


What makes an open API successful?

1. The underlying service• Or, a good API on a bad service is lipstick on a pig

2. A plan and a business model3. Simple, open, easily adopted4. Providing choices5. Good developer support

API business models

Who What HowAmazon Associates Retail Affiliate ModelAmazon S3 Infrastructure Pay-as-you-goeBay Auctions APIs for listingsExact Target Bulk Email Tiered pricingRhapsody Music PartnershipsSalesforce.com CRM / SFA SaaS per-seat licenses

Best practice: Bake your business model into your API

APIs as biz-dev enabler (aka Bizdev 2.0)

“Decentralized business development” -Toni Schneider

Consumer/HackerBusiness/Partner

Flickr API

API Billionaires Club, 2011 edition

5 billion API calls / day (April 2010)

1.6 billion API-delivered stories / month (October 2010)

5 billion API calls / day (October 2009)

8 billion API calls / month (Q3 2009)

3 billion API calls / month (March 2009)

13 billion API calls / day (May 2011)

Over 260 billion objects stored in S3 (January 2011)

10 billion API calls / month (January 2011)

The big technical debates

• Protocols and stylesREST vs. SOAP vs. …

• Data formatsXML vs. JSON vs. …

• StandardsSo many to choose from…

REST vs. SOAP: Simplicity wins again

Distribution of API protocols and stylesBased on directory of 3,200 web APIs listed at ProgrammableWeb, May 2011

Data formats: lots of choices

XML, JSON, RSS, Atom, YAML, iCalendar, CSV, Serialized PHP, HTML,

PNG, GeoRSS, vCard, Text, RDF, OPML, MediaRSS, VML, TV-Anytime, hCalendar,

FOAF, XSPF, SQL, GML, CDF

JSON Rising: 55% of all new APIs support JSON

Percentage of new APIs with JSON supportBased on directory of 3,200 web APIs listed at ProgrammableWeb, May 2011

20% of all new APIs support only JSON

Percentage of new APIs with only JSON supportBased on directory of 3,200 web APIs listed at ProgrammableWeb, May 2011

1 in every 5 new APIs says “goodbye XML”


Percentage of APIs with XML support

But only 1% of APIs offer RDF support


Semantic web service discovery


• Long history of research on ‘discovery’• Often WS-* related

– Ex: SAWSDL– Now outrun by rise of REST?

• What can PW do in this regard? – LOD for APIs?– RDFa per API?

API as Product

When an API is not an extension of your product, but it is your product

Screw the web site, let’s focus on the API

Qwerly shutters profile pages in favor of lucrative ‘DNS for people’ API

TechCrunch, May 5, 2011

API business models, circa 2005

API business models 2011

Invisible Mashups

Classic mashup

HousingMaps.com

Invisible mashup

Ooyala.com

EC2 + S3 + SQS+

Invisible APIs

+

APIs are hiding in plain sight, if you know where to look

Invisible APIs, the Steve Jobs edition

Twitter

Integrated right into iOS 5

Have we seen this before?

1995

Why do we need a Web site?

2000 2005 2010

Of course we have a Web site

Of course we have an API

Why do we need an API?

thank you

Questions, ideas, comments? Email me: [email protected]

Twitter: @programmableweb @johnmusser

open apis and the semantic web 2011

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