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The pros in this post do not seem terribly credible. First, are there companies other than Twitter that have made an API strategy work? In other words, are th

The pros in this post do not seem terribly credible. First, are there companies other than Twitter that have made an API strategy work? In other words, are there lots of examples of companies for whom their open API has been critical to adoption? Second, it seems like requiring the developers to develop an API means that now they have two problems: designing a UI and designing an API. But in any case, are there modern MVC web frameworks that don't make providing an API as easy as creating views for XML and JSON as well as HTML? Third, has any website released their UI code as open source to help people code against their API? Is this a sensible way for people to learn how the API works? Overall, I think there is something compelling about a single page, complete Javascript UI, but parts of this feel a bit like back-solving a justification. Are the better arguments all really UI-related and not backend-related?

enjo 15y ago
I'd argue Facebook has been pretty successful with their API. It certainly sped up adoption thanks to integrated apps like Farmville. It seems to me that the an API strategy can be very effective in making something already popular really take off. No one is going to build cool apps on top of your api unless you have users to actually leverage them. I'm always skeptical of models that depend completely on an API play.
- tlianza 15y ago
  Facebook is a great example of "APIs are important" but the Facebook API for apps is completely different than anything they'd use for their pages. Especially back in the old days, when apps lived in a proxied sandbox and all of the params were passed into them, this code could not have been useful to the regular Facebook-only experience. So, I don't think Facebook really counts as an example that supports the author's argument.
- socratic 15y ago
  Completely agree. Facebook was already worth $750 million and had millions of users by the time they released their API. However, the API does seem (with 20/20 hindsight) like it was a brilliant move in terms of growth, engagement, and eventually monetization.

enjo 15y ago

I'd argue Facebook has been pretty successful with their API. It certainly sped up adoption thanks to integrated apps like Farmville. It seems to me that the an API strategy can be very effective in making something already popular really take off. No one is going to build cool apps on top of your api unless you have users to actually leverage them. I'm always skeptical of models that depend completely on an API play.

tlianza 15y ago
Facebook is a great example of "APIs are important" but the Facebook API for apps is completely different than anything they'd use for their pages. Especially back in the old days, when apps lived in a proxied sandbox and all of the params were passed into them, this code could not have been useful to the regular Facebook-only experience. So, I don't think Facebook really counts as an example that supports the author's argument.
socratic 15y ago
Completely agree. Facebook was already worth $750 million and had millions of users by the time they released their API. However, the API does seem (with 20/20 hindsight) like it was a brilliant move in terms of growth, engagement, and eventually monetization.