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Thinking about an API
APIs are in the spotlight for quite some time, no wonder actually, since they provide services that would be virutally impossible for the weekend developer to do. Take googleMaps or Twitter as examples. These are used in hundreds of sites, adding functionalities only dreamed of.
Working on a project myself, I have started to think about APIs and how I would go about producing one that would attend the public that visits my site. I will try and document my progress here as we go developing an API from scrach.
The first question
Will an API be usefull? Your site has a contact form that sends you an email... well then there is not much point in puting in all the effort to develop an API. What do I mean? Basically, if you provide no service, nothing that anybody else can use to their advantage, then what is really the point? The idea behind a public API is to allow users to build on top of your tools, to add functionality to their products by using a service you provide.
The second question
It has to be "WHY?". I mean, unless you know why you need an API, there is not much point in developing one. APIs can help spread the knowledge of your site a bit. People get to see, indirectly sometimes, your product in the miriad of sites available on the web, and you start to get known. Some people will try and use your tools in ways that you could have not conceived, giving you a new insight on your own business.
The third question
"What will I do?"
This will vary tremendously. Each project has specific features and limitations. You will have to work this out on your own. I have a video community, and I will be working on it over the course of this "API Brainstorm". Hopefully, you´ll get the ideas and port them to your own projects.
In the video site, some of the functionalities we´d like to implement are:
Playlists, in-line comments and friend sharing. There are a whole buch of other tools, but these will be the first ones we will think about.
Our platform
This will vary tremendously I know, and I will do my best to explain concepts as generically as I can before diving into realy life code.
Our site is being currently run on CodeIgniter with a MySQL backend. We are using quite a bit of client side jQuery which we intend to extend over to the API calls.
Well, as an intro, that´s that. I will start the next Post as we slowly progress in creating our very own, useful and user friendly API.
Working on a project myself, I have started to think about APIs and how I would go about producing one that would attend the public that visits my site. I will try and document my progress here as we go developing an API from scrach.
The first question
Will an API be usefull? Your site has a contact form that sends you an email... well then there is not much point in puting in all the effort to develop an API. What do I mean? Basically, if you provide no service, nothing that anybody else can use to their advantage, then what is really the point? The idea behind a public API is to allow users to build on top of your tools, to add functionality to their products by using a service you provide.
The second question
It has to be "WHY?". I mean, unless you know why you need an API, there is not much point in developing one. APIs can help spread the knowledge of your site a bit. People get to see, indirectly sometimes, your product in the miriad of sites available on the web, and you start to get known. Some people will try and use your tools in ways that you could have not conceived, giving you a new insight on your own business.
The third question
"What will I do?"
This will vary tremendously. Each project has specific features and limitations. You will have to work this out on your own. I have a video community, and I will be working on it over the course of this "API Brainstorm". Hopefully, you´ll get the ideas and port them to your own projects.
In the video site, some of the functionalities we´d like to implement are:
Playlists, in-line comments and friend sharing. There are a whole buch of other tools, but these will be the first ones we will think about.
Our platform
This will vary tremendously I know, and I will do my best to explain concepts as generically as I can before diving into realy life code.
Our site is being currently run on CodeIgniter with a MySQL backend. We are using quite a bit of client side jQuery which we intend to extend over to the API calls.
Well, as an intro, that´s that. I will start the next Post as we slowly progress in creating our very own, useful and user friendly API.
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