API strategy

One period of my career that I always try to keep in mind was my time with Salesforce.com. It was 2002—the economy was in lockdown mode and everyone was looking for innovation on a budget. I started selling Salesforce Automation (SFA) as a multi-tenant SaaS solution, and it turned out to be exactly the right offering for the right market at the right time.

Platforms have become a driver of new technologies, businesses and economies. Many in our industry focus on companies looking to enable others to create and deploy on existing foundations. And so a lot of media attention goes to APIs that generate innovation, energy and attention from third party developers in what we call the “App Economy”. Yet, many platforms have been generating revenue with the simple strategy of selling access to their valuable data.

I’m always amazed to hear how fast things happen in the technology industry. It’s true—entire platforms can go from revolution to obsolete seemingly overnight, and we all know of companies that burned bright as startups and then went bankrupt in the blink of an eye. This is what keeps our world so exciting. It’s the new thing, the next thing, the bigger-faster-cheaper model taken to extremes.

There aren’t many issues left that we can see in terms of black and white. Everything has nuance—there are shades and complexities, levels of acceptance, and so on.

Here’s an exception. If you handle credit card data, your product or service is either PCI-compliant, or it’s not. Period.

I know this isn’t a fun topic. You want to focus on launching a commerce API but instead you spend time on figuring out how to comply with a long list of confusing rules. It’s a hassle and an obstacle. But it’s also vital.

There’s no arguing that the 2012 London Olympics are the most connected games ever. Via television, Web, radio or Twitter, the up-to-the-minute updates are pervasive. A sheer platitude of Olympic apps and gizmos offer up various bite-sized updates tailored to many tastes. All this, of course, comes courtesy of various APIs from news and other data sources. But are apps alone enough to deliver this data?

I’ve been blogging recently about how APIs are the New Currency. There are many factors in this equation, but one industry literally illustrates the changes I’m describing: financial services.

Companies in this arena have been all over the map in adapting to change. From putting ATMs in non-banking locations to deploying mobile applications, it’s often been a story of resistance followed by embrace. That’s because every change has required relinquishing control, broadening boundaries and taking risks, and for many that’s a tall order.

This is a guest post by Jake Reichert, a Managing Partner at Above Labs, LLC.

We recently announced I/O Wraps and I/O Alfred, two developer tools launched to the open source community last week at OSCON.

From my vantage point, it’s been fascinating to see the evolution in how others see what we do.