

Total bankers: Twitter and LinkedIn's cynical API play - tankenmate
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/05/api_hedging/

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alttab
Twitter made a mistake by proliferating its information and then trying to
build an advertising business off of it. Great engineering with an
unimaginative monetization strategy. It's almost as if Twitter is trying to be
two different and mutually exclusive things at the same time.

Totally agree with the platform argument. I wrote a blog post the other day
about hedging platform strategy: <http://www.connersc.com/blog/?p=154>
</shamlessplug>

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andrewaylett
If you're interested in pushing the open-API idea, you might be interested in
the Franklin Street Statement: <http://autonomo.us/2008/07/14/franklin-street-
statement/>

I'm aware that these ideas wouldn't appeal to either Twitter or LinkedIn, as
both derive much of their value from locking in users.

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raintrees
I guess I don't understand. How does one go about writing an open API for
someone else's platform? Won't that require support by that someone else who
created the platform?

Otherwise, aren't we stuck with having to recreate Facebook, Twitter, etc. in
order to write an open API for it? And therefore stuck requiring the adoption
for the new platform that someone else's platform already has? Therefore
"rolling your own" entirely in the first place?

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mcherm
I intend to publish an API. What can I do to reassure developers that I won't
behave like this if they build on my platform? Charge money?

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4clicknet
There's no way to guarantee you won't behave like that (I don't specifically
mean you, but anyone in a similar position). People have the best intentions,
but things change as time goes on.

In fact, charging money might make it all the more insulting if/when a company
later does something to piss off its developer community.

Platform integration is a risk, but I think it's better to take that risk than
not pursue an idea because some day the platform will cut you off from the
API.

~~~
mcherm
> There's no way to guarantee you won't behave like that

True, but I'm not just speculating here, I really DO want to release an API
from a big company and have it taken seriously and trusted by the development
community.

Let me try answering my own question. One thing I could do would be to publish
a statement guaranteeing access to the API for the next 5 years. Perhaps
people would find that reassuring. I suspect that our legal department would
have a problem with it -- it would prevent us from making changes if we needed
to... perhaps even from fixing a vital security flaw.

Maybe something weaker, like publishing a policy detailing the process for
deprecating APIs? The process could say that deprecated APIs will continue to
be supported for at least a year. It could also specify an exception for
security issues. Would this reassure developers?

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etherealG
what a good idea, a similar license for apis that forces access to the data in
the same way gpl forces access to the source code

~~~
Vivtek
Yeah, but who would enforce it? A class-action suit, maybe?

~~~
etherealG
anyone that can. e.g. a smallish company basing their business on top of an
api from a bigger one like twitter or google could feel safe knowing that they
couldn't legally remove access later. and if they did that small company could
recoup their potential earnings through litigation.

it works just the same way as gpl does to code.

