Kin Lane

API Evangelist

API’s + Government Data = Better Information and Services for the American People

October 2012

Some Quick Background On Myself...
23 Years Database Engineer
15 Years Web Applications
6 Years Cloud Computing
2 Years Studying APIs

History of APIs

Commerce

Salesforce
eBay
Amazon
Paypal

History of APIs

Social

Flickr
Delicious
Twitter
Facebook

History of APIs

Cloud / Infrastructure

Amazon S3 (Storage)
Amazon EC2 (Compute)
Amazon SimpleDB (Data)
Amazon RDS (Database)

History of APIs

Mobile

Instagram (Photos)
Foursquare (Local)
Pandora (Music)

History of APIs

Why Did It Work?

Built on HTTP
Simplicity
Hackable
Self-Service
Developer Focused
Distributed
Freemium
Pay As You Go

History of APIs

Three Essential Ingredients

Social
Cloud
Mobile

History of APIs

Solid Examples Transforming Legacy Models

API Planning & Design

Take Inventory

Data
Content
Resources
Most Requested
Most Valued

API Planning & Design

Goals

Objectives
Vision
Value
Objections
Strategy

API Planning & Design

Audience

Internal
Partners
Public
Technical Users
Enterprise Developers
Open Developers
End-Users of Apps

API Planning & Design

REST Patterns

URL (Locator) vs. URI (Identifier)
Plural Resources (/books/)
Verbs (GET,POST,PUT,DELETE)
Parameters (q=)
HTTP Headers

API Planning & Design

Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State (HATEOAS)

No Prior Knowledge of Resource
Never Hardcode URI
Business Flow
Business Logic
Business Rules

API Planning & Design

Pragmatic vs. Restful

Design for Audience
Hackable
Simplicity
Low Barrier to Entry

API Planning & Design

Focus On

Meaningful URIs (http://api.agency.gov/resources/)
Intuitive Parameters(&sort=)
Use Your Verbs (GET,POST,PUT,DELETE)
Data Formats (XML / JSON)
HTTP Codes
Error Codes
Versioning

API Planning & Design

APIs Are a Contract

Self-Service
Reliable
Stable
Life Cycle
Backwards Compatible
Deprecation

API Planning & Design

APIs Are a Contract

Whenever we kill an API endpoint, we have a party where we make piñatas resembling the icons of third-party apps we broke.
— API (@fake_api) October 12, 2012

API Planning & Design

Infrastructure

Caching
Traffic Control
Scalability
Cloud v Internal

API Planning & Design

Security

User Management
Keys
Basic Auth
oAuth
SSL

API Development

Technology of APIs

Pragmatic REST
JSON / XML
Webhooks
oEmbed

API Development

Business of APIs - Onboarding

Getting Started Guide
Self-Service Registration
API Best Practices
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

API Development

Business of APIs - Documentation

List of Endpoints
Documentation
API Explorer

API Development

Business of APIs - Documentation - Explorer

API Development

Business of APIs - Documentation

List of Endpoints
Documentation
API Explorer
Interactive Documentation

API Development

Business of APIs - Documentation - Interactive Docs

API Development

Business of APIs - Documentation

List of Endpoints
Documentation
API Explorer
Interactive Documentation
Error Response Codes

API Development

Business of APIs - Code

Code Libraries
Software Development Kits (SDK)
Platform Development Kits (PDK)
Starter Projects
Application Gallery

API Development

Business of APIs - Mobile

iOS
Android
Windows
HTML5
Tiggzi

API Development

Business of APIs - Mobile

API Development

Business of APIs - Embeddable

Buttons
Badges
Widgets

API Development

Business of APIs - JavaScript APIs

Syndication
Proxy
Security
Hackable

API Development

Business of APIs - Self-Service Support

Forum
Stack Overflow

API Development

Business of APIs - Self-Service Support

API Development

Business of APIs - Direct Support

Email
Phone
Ticket System
Office Hours

API Development

Business of APIs - Communications

Blog
E-Newsletter
Facebook
Google+
LinkedIn
Twitter

API Development

Business of APIs - Updates

Change Log
Roadmap
Status Dashboard

API Development

Business of APIs - Resources

Case Studies
How-To Guides
Webinars
White Papers

API Development

Business of APIs - Environment

Sandbox
Production

API Development

Business of APIs - Developer Account

Account Settings
Application Manager
Billing History
Developer Dashboard
Reset Password
Usage Logs & Analytics

API Development

Business of APIs - Discovery

WADL
Swagger
IO Docs
Google

API Development

You Probably Don't Have Resources To Do All of That

But Consider Which Will Best Serve Your Audience!

API Development

API Service Providers

API Development

API Service Providers - SOA

API Development

API Service Providers - Web APIs

API Development

API Service Providers - New Generation

API Development

API Service Providers

Proxy vs. Connector

API Development

API Service Providers - Open Source

API Development

Tools for Deploying APIs - Frameworks

API Development

Tools for Deploying APIs - Swagger

API Development

Tools for Management & Support

IO Docs
Graphite
Stats D
Google API Explorer

API Development

Tools for Building Apps on APIs

API Development

Services for Deploying APIs - PaaS

API Development

Services for Deploying APIs - BaaS

API Development

Platforms for Management & Support APIs

API Development

Tools for Managing APIs - Github

Design and Code
Documentation
Software development kits (SDK)
Code Samples (Gists)
Developer Authentication
Developer Profiling

Presentations and Guides
Issue Management
Roadmaps
Hackathons
Developer Authentication
TOS, Privacy, and Branding

API Evangelism

It Seems Like a Lot, But These Providers Do It Well:

3Scale
Mashape
Socrata
Tech + Business

API Development

Politics of APIs

Education
Investment
Budgets
Data Ownership
Data Retention
Terms of Use
Privacy
Branding

API Development

Politics of APIs

We Are Still Studying...

And Understanding the Politics of APIs!

API Evangelism

Landscape Analysis

Competition
Industry
Keywords
Blogs
Social

API Evangelism

Blogging

Projects
Hacking
Storytelling
Syndication

API Evangelism

Developer Engagement

New User
Active User
Historical
Social Engagement

API Evangelism

Forum Management

Maintain
Stories

API Evangelism

GitHub Management

Code
Relationship
Projects

API Evangelism

QA Management

Profile Maintenance
Stack Exchange
Quora
QA Seeding

API Evangelism

Social Management

Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook
Google+

API Evangelism

Social Bookmarking

Hacker News
StumbleUpon
Reddit

API Evangelism

Roadmap

Communicate
Change Log
Roadmap
Status Dashboard

API Evangelism

Reporting

Activity By User Group
New Registrations / Per API
Volume of Calls / Per API
Other Innovative Metrics?

API Evangelism

Internal

Reporting
Storytelling
Showcase

API Evangelism

Events

Conferences
Workshops
Hackathons

API Evangelism

Events - Hackathons

Startup Weekend Model
Prizes and Incentives
Size and Scope
Niche and Verticals
SaaS and Process
Data and Visualizations

API Evangelism

Events

Conferences
Workshops
Hackathons
Meetups

API Evangelism

Iterate

Rapid Cycles
Keep Active
Innovate
Try New Things
Don't Be Afraid to Fail
Measure
Feedback Loop

API Evangelism

You Probably Don't Have Resources To Do Everything

But, Is It Something Your Whole Team Can Help Own?

And, Consider Alpha Developers / Evangelist Within Community!

APIs Are

Research & Development

Ideas
Experimentation
External
Comfort Zone
Efficiency
Proof of Concept

APIs Are

Business Development

New Opportunities
Internal Evaluation
Say NO
Classic Biz Dev
Set Ideas Free
Bring in Partners
Biz Dev 2.0 Cycle

Whats Next for APIs?

Technology

Subscribe (pubsubhubbub)
Real-Time (webhooks / push)
Websockets
Hundreds of Devices
Sensors
Quantified Self
Voice