API Access Tiers Leverage Digital Assets in Web and Mobile Applications
San Francisco, CA, June 30, 2010—Mashery, the leading provider of API (Application Programming Interface) management and strategic services, today announced new API access tiers, a platform that allows publishing and media companies to provide varying levels of access to their digital assets to internal, partner and third-party developers. API access tiers create a foundation for opening up content to the public or based on established business relationships, providing a viable framework for media companies to monetize online data.
The global publishing industry is facing rapid changes to content delivery models. New devices are being launched every day that allow consumers to get more of their news on the go, and these mobile devices are achieving mainstream adoption much quicker. Just this year, the Apple iPad sold 2 million units in the first 60 days—and Apple reports that a new iPad is sold every three seconds. Media companies need to adapt their content delivery strategies to keep up with constant innovation and early adoption. Managing a reliable, easy-to-use API portal is a cost-efficient solution that allows media companies to take advantage of application development and revenue stream opportunities from the global developer community.
The Guardian newspaper based in the U.K. is using Mashery’s new API access tiers to provide its digital assets to developers and partners through “Open Platform”—the Guardian’s API portal that includes more than 1 million archived articles, picture galleries, podcasts and videos. Partners can access and reuse the Guardian’s content to reach a wider audience, engage users more deeply and produce innovative advertising campaigns. In return, the company can develop new partnerships and expand its reach and its business models through those partnerships. Mashery’s API management service provides the Software as a Service (SaaS) platform necessary to cost-efficiently manage, monitor, monetize and control access to the newspaper’s APIs.
“The ability to provide varying levels of access to our archives is critical in developing a distributed partner model,” said Matt McAlister, head of the Guardian developer network. “We rely on Mashery’s expertise to manage and monitor access rights. As a result, we are able to offer a very robust product that creates new opportunities for us and for our partners.”
Deborah Schultz, Partner Innovation & Design at the Altimeter Group commented, “The early successes and adoption of the iPad, smart phones and other mobile readers are pushing publishers and media companies to think about how they can open up their content to partners and developers to help them expand distribution to these new devices. But access is only part of the story. Media needs to explore new monetization opportunities to leverage this expanding ecosystem”.
Mashery understands that managing APIs is an ongoing process of registering and provisioning new developers while keeping an eye on performance and responding to support requests from the developer community. Any one of these tasks can be time consuming for even just a single partner. When the number of partners grows to dozens, hundreds or thousands of developers, suddenly the job of managing APIs quickly exceeds the bandwidth of most media and publishing companies. In response, Mashery provides a Web-based service that simplifies partner access, monitors API activity for stability and performance and collaborates with and supports developer communities.
“Innovations in mobile technology have fundamentally changed the basic principles of media distribution. Media companies excel at creating content, but most do not have the in-house resources or expertise to keep up with all the new business development opportunities being created through application development and new platforms,” said Oren Michels, CEO, Mashery. “Instead of using resources to try to manage APIs, API access and a variety of partner relationships, publishing and media companies can now focus on what they do best: creating content. Mashery’s API management and strategic services allow them to do just that and with a clear path to revenue creation.”
About Mashery
Mashery’s API management tools and strategic services help companies connect with customers and partners in a changing digital world by extending reach across devices, markets and the Web. Mashery leads the industry with a holistic approach for API initiatives—from setting platform strategy and measuring business objectives to the heavy lifting of providing and managing infrastructure to facilitating relationships with our 50,000-strong network of Web and mobile application developers. Our knowledge, experience and proven strategies enable companies to focus on their core business while driving sales, building new revenue channels and realizing faster time-to-market for innovative applications. Mashery was founded in 2006 and has built an impressive list of clients that include Best Buy, Netflix, and The New York Times. For more information, visit www.mashery.com.
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Help developers earn money
June 28th, 2010
Coders who work with APIs often have a strong entrepreneurial streak. Many have tried out just about every monetization model out there for app development. One-time paid subscription. Affiliate. “All-you-can-eat” monthly paid subscription. Advertising. Free-mium. Custom development fees. Just in the last two months, I’ve spotted some new trends in monetizing app development thanks to the help of a couple of smart guys, Steve and Neil. Both have great insights around how platform providers who offer APIs can focus on creating value for developers who build great apps.
Photo credit: WWDC Live Keynote Coverage, gdgt.com
1) Steve the Platform Provider: As shared at WWDC earlier this month, “Why are we doing iAds? For one simple reason: to help developers earn money so they can continue to create free and low-cost apps for users.” Steve recognizes that the deflationary nature of App Stores for mobile application developers has even the largest platform providers looking for alternative revenue models for app builders. The downward pressures on paid-app fees have interesting parallels with the music industry, where downloads are loss leaders for a variety of upsell and marketing opportunities. As confirmed in The Economist, in each case some make it big, but most never become hits. And apart from evergreens, such as games, utilities and programs to use Facebook and Twitter, even the most successful mobile apps often quickly fade into obscurity.
With emerging ad platforms like iAds, AdMob, and Promoted Tweets on the rise, it is clear that platform providers understand that more developers building great apps for customers need a clear path forward for making money. More attention will be given by app developers on how to use advertising (over subscription fees) to monetize their app development. This will have big consequences for the landscape of app development looking forward.
2) Neil the Coder: Neil Mansilla, a successful Web application developer, gave his own point of view at our unconference API Panel Discussion at Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco last month. Neil shared with our audience that that platform providers offering him marketing opportunities to potential users of his app have turned out to be more valuable than structural differences in revenue share or access fees. When an Apple or Facebook or eBay or Salesforce.com select an app to showcase for their customers, the resulting awareness and downloads/registrations are at a scale developers generally never could have afforded on their own.
So, Steve signaled that advertising is positioned to play an increasingly important role for app monetization for developers, implicitly acknowledging the downward pricing pressures on paid apps. Then, Neil gave me a lesson in the value of app marketing to app developers, sharing that in many cases the most valuable offer that platform providers can extend to developers is actively promoting the best quality apps to their customer base.
Savvy app developers out there are quickly going to get a lot more comfortable with the role that marketing and advertising has in the overall value of their app development projects. Savvy Web and mobile platform providers with APIs should pay close attention.
- Delyn
Mashery Hits the Road in May
May 20th, 2010
We’re packing our bags, loading them up with everything from hackcodes to whitepapers, and we’re off! Mashery hits the road to spread the news about API Management. Stop by and say hello, grab free drinks, a handy dandy bottle opener/thumb drive and learn a bit about how we are helping companies from all industries discover new ways to distribute their content, products and data.
Mashery Live at TechCrunch Disrupt
May 23rd to May 26th, New York City
TechCrunch Disrupt: Hackathon
Sat. May 22nd, 6pm to Sun., May 23rd, 8am
We can rebuild it. We can make it better. Stronger. Faster.
The mission, a 24 hour marathon of hacking at TechCrunch Disrupt. The team at TechCrunch will provide the Red Bull and the Pizza. Stop by the Mashery sponsored table and grab coffee, tea, Diet Coke or Mt. Dew! Mashery’s resident hacker and Chief Architect, Clay Loveless, will be hacking the night away along with the other hackers, as we all will see who will take the prize in the end. To assist with the late night hacking, Mashery will be giving away probably the coolest thing we’ve handed down as of yet, “keychain/bottle opener/ thumb drives“!
(Note: Filled with plenty of hacking treats!).
And who knows, all of this hacking might create something worth 6 million dollars.
For more info, visit: http://disrupt.techcrunch.com/hackathon/
Mashery will also be an official exhibitor at TechCrunch Disrupt. Stop by our table to learn more about how we are helping companies like The New York Times, NetFlix, Best Buy, Etsy and more.
For more info, visit:
http://disrupt.techcrunch.com/exhibit/
Mashery Visits Denver to Participate at the Glue Conference
May 26th, Denver, CO
For all of the coders, Mashery’s represents! We are sponsoring a break during the “GlueCon” API Hour during the hackathon, Free drinks for everyone from 9:30-10:30pm! We will be giving away the official Mashery keychain/bottle opener/ thumb drives (filled with plenty of hacking treats).
While there, say hi to our Chief Architect, Clay Loveless and the rest of the Mashery team.
For more info, visit: http://www.gluecon.com/2010/
Mashery Goes to Washington – Government 2.0 Expo!
May 26th & 27th,Washington, D.C.
Visit the team at Mashery as we arrive into Washington, D.C. to share the world of API Management with attendees of the Gov 2.0 conference (Innovators Pavilion, Pod #16).While we may not create any new bills or introduce new legislation, we will for sure show how open initiatives within the government sector are leading to new and inventive ways of delivering information.
Also, Oren Michels, Co-Founder and CEO of Mashery and VP of Products, Chris Lippi, will be presenting at the Expo Theater Floor, booth #100.
For more information about this event, visit: http://www.gov2expo.com/gov2expo2010
Expo Hours:
Wed., May 26th, 10:30am-5:30pm
Thur., May 27th, 10:00am-2:00pm
Developers Cite Best and Worst of API Resources
San Francisco, CA, May 5, 2010—Mashery, the leading provider of API (Application Programming Interface) management and strategic services, revealed key insights from the Mashery API Developer Pulse, a study that polled more than 550 mobile and Web application developers at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) event in March 2010. The Mashery Developer Pulse asked industry leading developers to sound off about the APIs they choose to build with and why as well as asking general questions about the development environment today. Developers put Google, Twitter and Amazon at the top of the list for the “best APIs” available for application development, and also revealed a long tail of dozens of APIs that developers enjoy working with on a regular basis.
Overall, developers say they want more information from APIs – one-third say code samples are most helpful, while 25 percent want more clarity around API license terms.
Mashery also discovered that most developers (64 percent) aren’t motivated by paychecks to build applications with APIs. In fact, 17 percent are doing it outside of their day job.
“Mashery prides itself on having a strong understanding and connection with the developer community,” said Delyn Simons, Director of Platform Strategies at Mashery. “By keeping a pulse on what makes developers tick, we can continue to meet growing demand for our API services, while innovating to ensure we’re launching well-constructed, simple-to-use APIs that move businesses forward.”
Mashery enables companies to focus on their core business by managing the complicated API infrastructure and developer engagement with its extensive developer network to help companies drive sales, build new revenue channels and realize faster time-to-market for innovative applications.
“APIs allow an army of independent software creators to come up with ever more diverse and powerful ways of interacting with a company’s data and services,” said Daniel Choi, Mashery API Network developer and creator of the popular online mashup of Netflix and The New York Times APIs plus iPhone app, instantwatcher.com. “For developers, a solid API strategy includes clear API documentation, a commitment to responding to developers’ questions, and terms of service that leave plenty of leeway for us to do interesting things with an API and at the same time, find ways to profit from our work.”
The study also found that 73 percent of those polled are using online/browser and mobile for development platforms. Desktop, GPS, set-top and gaming console developers have yet to attract significant API developer adoption.
The most popular programming languages are PHP and JavaScript cited by 48 percent; however, despite the growth of iPhone applications, only six percent of the API developers polled are using Objective-C programming language, primarily used in iPhone application development.
DOWNLOAD APPLICATION TRENDS DATA
To learn more about the results and a discussion of trends in API development, join Mashery executives at this year’s Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco on May 5th.
Director of Platform Strategies Delyn Simons will lead an API panel discussion, “Riding the Rollercoaster of Developer Ecosystem.”
When: Wednesday, May 5 at 11:10am PT
CEO Oren Michels will discuss the “ABC’s of APIs: Why not having an API in 2010 is like not having a website in 2001: Real World Case Studies of API Success.”
When: Wednesday, May 5 at 1:30pm PT
About the Mashery Developer Pulse
Mashery surveyed 560 developers between March 11-March 15, 2010 at the SXSWi industry conference. For complete results, click here. The study is meant to provide information to better serve both the developers (API consumers), as well as companies interested in developing their APIs (API producers).
About Mashery
Mashery’s API management tools and strategic services help companies connect with customers and partners in a changing digital world by extending reach across devices, markets and the Web. Mashery leads the industry with a holistic approach for API initiatives—from setting platform strategy and measuring business objectives to the heavy lifting of providing and managing infrastructure to facilitating relationships with our 50,000-strong network of Web and mobile application developers. Our knowledge, experience and proven strategies enable companies to focus on their core business while driving sales, building new revenue channels and realizing faster time-to-market for innovative applications. Mashery was founded in 2006 and has built an impressive list of clients that include Best Buy, Netflix, and the New York Times. For more information, visit www.mashery.com.
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Media Contact:
Aimee Eichelberger
(415) 963-4174 ext. 15
aimee(at)bordergratehouse.com
