
Almost everyone is doing the API economy wrong - jstoiko
http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/21/almost-everyone-is-doing-the-api-economy-wrong/
======
gkoberger
I've seen a lot of APIs on ReadMe.io, and one thing I've noticed is that many
APIs tend to be built as though replicating the main site is the only usecase.
Before launching an API, you should come up with 5-10 compelling usecases that
someone couldn't use your website for.

You should publicly post these usecases somewhere, too, as a type of "Request
for Projects". It gives people ideas... after all, you spend more time
thinking about your API than anyone else ever will.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "Before launching an API, you should come up with 5-10 compelling usecases
> that someone couldn't use your website for."

Not necessarily. Sometimes what you want is to combine data from multiple
sources in interesting ways. A single API doesn't need to be versatile, it
just needs to make useful information available.

~~~
gkoberger
Sure, this counts as a compelling usecase. Maybe your API just lets users list
Items chronologically since that makes sense for your site, but someone else
wants to get Items by location.

Many times, the only way to do what you want with data is to use the API to
get _everything_ , then transform it locally. This is obviously really
inefficient (and sometimes impossible).

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daigoba66
"If you build it, they will come." Except they won't.

It seems to me that, unless your product is a platform, you probably shouldn't
publish a public API until someone requests it as a feature. And you should
charge for it, especially if your hosting the API endpoint. Turn it into
direct revenue to support the development and maintence of those API features.

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intrasight
If we're talking here only about web APIs where there is an economy (meaning
that money changes hands), then I don't think that it's fair to say that most
are doing it wrong. This is relatively new territory and it is taking time to
flesh out the business models. Look, newspapers are still trying to figure out
the business models.

Information consumed by eyeballs has different business models. You can
paywall or you can have it ad-supported (or both). API clients don't have
eyeballs, so ad-supported isn't an option. Microsoft has the Azure Data
Marketplace, which is the only monetized API market that I'm aware of. My
company provides APIs for cloud ETL that companies pay an annual subscription
to use. You could say that Amazon Lambda is a metered API. My own opinion is
that there will be lots of different business models. This is just getting
started.

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jblow
You guys know you really mean "Web API" and not "API", right?

This kind of phraseology is a clear sign that someone's programming experience
is extremely narrow in scope.

~~~
thejosh
It also depends on the context. Typing Web API everytime is stupid. We say
Linux, not GNU/Linux or Chrome instead of Google Chrome.

~~~
leohutson
What's the context here though?

I had to skim like 5 paragraphs to even know wtf the title meant.

~~~
olalonde
In case you are asking genuinely, the "API economy" buzzword was coined a few
years ago to describe business models based or largely reliant on web APIs.

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fiatjaf
To how many products does this article apply? Only super huge platform
products, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Dropbox and Uber, right? Perhaps
2 or 3 high-business services. Google services have super limited APIs, Airbnb
has none, WhatsApp has none. All other APIs are unmonetizable.

~~~
junto
I work on a product that uses several third party, paid APIs.

\- postcode lookups

\- sending email

\- sending SMS

\- multi-hop route planning

\- engineer appointment scheduling

~~~
fiatjaf
This is not the kind of API the article is about. These are paid services that
happen to be accessible through APIs, not API ecosystems.

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7373737373
I want to do it right, so I want to ask you:

Question 1: Is there a de facto API/service description language standard out
there?

Optional question 2: Which would be the best choice for a decentralised
internet of services?

~~~
gkoberger
Answer 1: Swagger is the de facto. It seems to have low actual usage, but high
midshare. As time goes on, I expect there to be a much higher usage of
Swagger, since pretty much all API services accept it.

(Other options include RAML, Blueprint and IO Docs, but Swagger has the
momentum)

~~~
7373737373
Thanks! I figured the same. OpenAPI seems to be it.

WSDL on the other hand seems to be dead and/or unusable. Even one of its
creators described it as a "train wreck" :)

~~~
machinshin_
Oh gods yah. WSDL should die painfully in a fire with all the people in its
standards committee

~~~
junto
The basic WSDL stuff is OK. It's the WS-n extensions that are truly the Zed of
this world.

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sna1l
It seems like a lot of APIs are created to support websites, and then
developers/PMs think oh well might as well open this up to the public, not
really taking into account the ramifications.

