Dun & Bradstreet

APIs play a huge role in the B2C arena. For example, a retail API allows access to pricing data, product catalog, support and purchases.  These outward APIs ease the creation of apps, integrations, and robust consumer experiences.  Not to mention the ability to track usage and see trends with API management.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about an API strategy specific to enterprise needs.  The strategy discussed in that post is one of dividing data into tiers.  Large companies have virtual landfills full of data, but not all company data is the same.  Some is public, some is for customers only and some is for internal use only.  The API strategy should reflect that.  It should have different tiers that are meant for different users.

On Friday, Part I of this series covered the broad strokes of what is one of the integration spaces’ pivotal annual gatherings, Gartner’s Application, Architecture Delivery and Integration Summit (AADI). This show sets the coming year’s tone for application integration at Fortune 500 companies, and to a degree for the integration space as a whole. At the last two shows, that tone has been spelled out clearly: A-P-I.

At Mashery we are very interested in the business of APIs (if you missed our Business of APIs conference earlier this fall, you should check out some videos of the sessions).  We love to talk about the benefits APIs bring to businesses all across different verticals.  From growing your brand awareness to internal development of new apps/products, APIs can make your business function better, faster and more efficiently.

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.