APIs

This guest post, written by Andy Thurai, originally appeared on Programmableweb. Andy is the Chief Architect & Group CTO for the Intel unit responsible for Cloud/ Application security, API, Big Data, SOA and Mobile middleware solutions. You can follow him on Twitter at @AndyThurai.

See how Mashery's API Management Platform empowers you to manage the three essential elements of a successful API:  your partners, your APIs as products, and traffic.  This video features partner portals from ESPN, TomTom, and CarePass by Aetna.

SXSW has traditionally been a stronghold for lifestyle technology.  Until recently, the Interactive crowd went as far as shunning the mere notion that enterprise business process or even mere productivity apps had anything to do with the social interaction of the creative minds that mingled amid the balmy spring weather of Austin.

Mashery’s own Delyn Simons, VP of Developer Outreach, and John Oberon, VP of Engineering, were featured in a New York Times article titled “Where Apps Meet Work, Secret Data Is at Risk.” The article focuses on the risk of data exposure in a world where employees work and live using the apps and devices they choose; where employees may be sending and sharing sensitive information using apps like Dropbox,

Several lucky Masherites, including me, got to spend last Thursday and Friday at the API Strategy & Practice Conference in New York City.

APIs are so vital for business companies like TechCrunch are beginning to treat them as products in their own right. This approach allows such companies to maximize platform reach, profits and partnerships.

For those of us who live in cities, transportation networks are vital to our day-to-day activities.  Since I don’t have a car, I am wholly reliant on New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).   Thank god they have an API.

This post, part of a guest blog series on platform success strategies, originally appeared on Programmableweb.com

We took a look at Internal APIs, or APIs within a company, in our post earlier this week and were reminded of the Olympic-sized benefit Coca-Cola Enterprises internal API and ordering app gave them during the summer Olympics in London last year.

To round out my discussion of enterprise API strategy, I want to focus on how enterprise’s can use APIs for internal usage.  I have already discussed how enterprises can benefit from exposing some of their data to the general public as well as customers and partners.  Those are the standard target audiences for API programs. 

Photo courtesy of zegosoft.com

I recently discussed what data/content enterprises can open up to the public through APIs.  This week, I want to discuss the customer and/or partner API tier.  This tier covers data that is too important to the enterprise to be made public, but is very useful to its customers and/or partners. 

Healthcare and mobile technology influence each other more each day, making seamless data sharing essential for their mutual development. And as the best conduit for fast and organized information exchange, APIs are now becoming crucial to healthcare innovation.

A couple of weeks ago, Adria Richards (West Coast Developer Evangelist with our friends at SendGrid) hosted Girl Develop Its’ “How to Rock Your First Hackathon”.

She went through some of the key resources anyone should have ready (not just the ladies) for your first hackathon:

Learn To Code Resources

The Yellow Pages Group (YPG) has experienced an incredible journey from phonebook supplier to online communications and marketing giant. And since releasing an API, the Canadian company and its business partners continue to enjoy even more growth.

Last week, Mashery attended PennApps, a 40-hour application development competition organized by the students at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 

The bi-annual event is a 40-hour hackathon that brings 500 student designers and developers from around the world together to build and hack. 

Mashery hacks
There were eight hacks built using Mashery APIs. Here are some favorites: