API Strategy

Brought to you by Mashery's Strategy Services team - helping companies define and align their API goals with their overall business needs to create successful API programs.

[apistrategy-blog]

A Brief Note on Our Blog

It is with a heavy heart that we regret to inform our loyal readership that we will be decommissioning our tumblr strategy blog.  This was not a decision we arrived at lightly; in the end it came down to a Game of Thrones style trial by combat showdown.  The pro tumblr side hasn’t read the books and is still catching up on the last season so predictably it chose an Oberyn-esque champion.  Needless to say it did not end well for tumblr.  

 But fret not API strategy fans; the Strategy Team is not leaving you!  You’ll still be able to read Rob's ramblings,  Devon's discourse, Tameez's thoughts, Rahul's repartee, and Kyle's contemplations (we know the last one was a stretch but it is so difficult to find a word that starts with “K”) you’ll just have to do it somewhere else. We aren’t as much closing down as we are moving out.  And like a recent grad with a degree in medieval Slavic history, we’re moving back home.  That’s right you can still find all of our Strategy goodness on the Mashery Blog page.  And we fully intend to keep all of the strategy content coming - complimented by bad puns, pop culture references and anything else we find humorous on that day. So keep reading because we’re going to keep writing.  And hey, if you ever want to chat about what we’ve had to say or talk about your API strategy, reach out to us we’d love to talk with you.

 You’ve been a great audience and we do appreciate your loyalty especially when you have so many other great tumblrs to fill your internet hours so to reward you for the time you’ve spent with us here’s 20 Funny Cat Gifs.  Enjoy!

-Mashery Strategy Services Team

[apistrategy-blog]

APIs for R&R

 By: Kyle Riordan

In a couple of days I will be heading off for a long overdue vacation in the warm and sunny Caribbean. If you caught my last post you’re probably not overly surprised with the choice of location.  But that process of planning out my trip got me thinking, how many APIs am I using to do this?  And yes, even when thinking about our own vacations we here on the Strategy Services team are thinking about APIs.   We’ve written numerous times in the past about booking APIs and their effect on the travel industry but really their utility goes so much further than just the booking experience.

 Let’s explore just how heavily APIs are involved here.

 As we’ve said, it all starts with the booking experience.  Nowadays it’s pretty rare to find someone who still uses an actual travel agent to plan his or her trip.  Why bother when we have the vast resources and booking power of the Internet at our fingertips anywhere we go?  Why would I want to ring up a travel agent and get 2 or 3 options when I can do an Expedia search and be presented with hundreds that I can further refine with my preferences?  Ok I know, the point is made; online booking is clearly easier, affords us more options and generally costs us less money.  The point of this post though is APIs and their involvement in that whole process – and that involvement is pretty substantial.

 Actually, saying it’s involvement is substantial is probably an understatement.  In fact, it’s by no means a stretch to say that APIs are the crux of that entire lifecycle.  You want to see all the flight options at once updated in real time? That’s where APIs come in, giving you the most relevant and up to date information as possible.  You want to see which hotels have rooms available when you get there? That’s APIs again!

But when jetting off to whatever sunny destination we choose or scheduling that next big business trip the use of APIs doesn’t end when we finish the booking process.  No, oftentimes it continues throughout the entire trip. Think of getting to the airport.  My plan is to take a cab; sure I could call ahead and schedule one but more likely than not I’m just going to end up taking an Uber.  As noted in past posts, what makes that whole experience so convenient is the driver automatically knowing where I am upon my request – a convenience brought to you by a geolocation API.

If you’re anything like me, before you make that request you want to make sure your flight is still on time. Nobody likes arriving at the airport with 2 hours to board only to find that your flight has been delayed a couple of hours.  I’m one of those travelers that likes to arrive with plenty of time but whenever I have to kill 4 hours in an airport I immediately get that sinking feeling. But APIs can help you avert all that dread and the slow crawl of the airport WiFi.  APIs can deliver to you that flight delay warning keeping you at home killing for a couple of extra hours with Netflix streaming smoothly on your TV and not constantly buffering on your phone or tablet.

But it is not just the consumer experience that APIs enable.  

APIs are generating all sorts of new and interesting ways for all kinds of travel companies to interact and expand their B2B footprint.  It is what allows Expedia to tap into new markets driving substantial revenue.  APIs are what allow hotels to share their up to date room vacancies - filling their buildings with more guests not forgoing revenue opportunities when a guest cancels last minute.  In a nutshell APIs are what cobble together this disparate world of travel making for not just a better customer experience but better business interaction.  

Recognizing this immense opportunity, the stakeholders from online travel agencies to hotel chains are increasingly moving to a more API centric model.  But, just having APIs isn’t enough.  Like any other product a company offers, APIs need to be easy to use and manage.  That is where API management comes in; giving companies the tools they need to properly administer their APIs.  It is what allows the travel companies to offer the APIs more easily to the right partners with the appropriate controls and what gives the users a better experience with easier onboarding and development tools like interactive documentation.

Ultimately everyone benefits from having API management.  The travel companies have better control of their API product, their partners have an easier time with integration, and apps get to consumers quicker. So in the end I guess it isn’t so bad that I am thinking about APIs even when heading off on vacation.  They are as important to my trip as the airplane itself. So the next time you are looking to book a trip, get a jump on the R&R and let APIs work for you.

[apistrategy-blog]

Safer Driving

By: Kyle Riordan

This past weekend I met up with a friend for coffee.  Now that might sound like a germane activity but those of us in the northeast know that such had the potential to turn into a harrowing experience.  Fortunately, less for the sake of my safety and more for the intrigue of this blog post it did! 

In case anyone has missed the excessive news coverage or the numerous Buzzfeed “articles” (term used loosely but that is neither here nor there) New England, particularly Boston, has been hit especially hard with snow this winter.  To put it to an analogy, when I say hit hard, I mean Mike Tyson on his best day when he was the heavyweight champion type of hit hard; I’ve never seen a winter like this one. 

But back to the story itself, in my zeal to escape the cabin fever brought on by the onslaught of snow that prevented me from leaving my apartment for just over a week I decided to hop in the car and go meet a friend for coffee.  The drive itself was going well (as well as it can in these wintry conditions) until a truck merged into my lane spraying some snow/slush onto my windshield.  No big deal I thought, this is why Mary Anderson thought fit to invent wiper blades, but much to my chagrin the subsequent scraping across my screen only succeeded in spreading a thin, yet visually impenetrable layer of salt across the entirety of the glass.  Undeterred by this new complication I again thought, No big deal, I have wiper fluid, one small pull on the lever and this will all be rectified. 

It is at this point in the story that things start to go awry. 

What I thought would be a quick fix, showering my now crusted windshield with that neon blue liquid turned out to be nothing more than an aggravation of the problem, scrapping my still dry wipers across the windscreen version of Bonneville.   I, as you have probably guessed, was completely out of washer fluid.  So to sum up, at this stage, I am driving approximately 50mph down a relatively busy highway with no breakdown lane to speak of (as you may recall we’ve had some snow) and I can only see peripherally; that checks just about all the boxes for good safe winter driving.  Thankfully, I only (only being a very relative term in this case) had about a mile or so of white knuckle driving to my nearest exit where I was able to pull off, find a gas station happily pay the attendant the 3 dollar fee (he really could have said any price and I’d have been hard pressed to argue) for a jug of washer fluid to replenish my tank and safely make it to the meeting point for a cup of joe – I opted for tea needing no additional stimulant over the adrenaline still coursing through veins.

All of this could have easily been avoided.  “Of course it could have!” I am sure you are all saying, “If only you periodically checked your fluid levels!”  Sure that’s one option, but how many of us really do that?  How many of us do it in a blustery winter where days that it climbs into the teens are considered “Not that bad?”  How many of us? A show of hands, go on, I’ll wait.  No, the solution I am thinking of keeps us out of the cold and our windshields clear.  We need a better way of monitoring the fluid level without having to pop the hood.  And for those of you whose cars already do that, bully for you, after this weekend’s experience you have my envy.  The rest of us though are in need of some device that can be added to our existing cars to alert us when that sweet elixir starts getting perilously low.

Enter the IoT (Internet of Things) for consumer devices.  That is the answer to our need!  A small device that can be applied to any vehicle designed to monitor the fluid level and alert the driver when it’s getting to be high time he or she fills up.  What that device might look like and how it would go about the actual monitoring and analysis is a bit beyond me but in the realm of the IoT, it really can’t be all that difficult.  I mean we have unobtrusive devices that can monitor our blood oxygen levels in real time; comparatively speaking, measuring how much fluid is left in a plastic tank can be all that difficult.  But the “How do we do it?” part isn’t the part that I am most interested in.  No, what I am most interested in is not how we get the data, it’s what do we do with that data once we have it.

Enter APIs.

APIs are the essential tool that can take the information obtained from this hypothetical device and deliver it to you in an easily consumable format like your phone or other mobile device.  Beyond just letting you know that your current level is dipping below 30% though APIs can take that information and make it truly actionable.  Like for instance if you are driving along and stop at a gas station to fill up.  Chances are you’re not checking you app constantly so the tank could be approaching empty without your knowledge.  In said scenario, we’re right back to where we started.  But, if when you do pull into that station your app, using a geolocation API recognizes where you are and prompts you with a push notification warning you that your tank is nearly empty, you’d be able to avert the near disastrous scenario that befell me this past weekend.  You could even link it up with an online shopping platform to have replacement fluid shipped to your house whenever your tank reaches a certain level.  Short of having someone put the fluid in the tank for you the whole thing practically takes case of itself.  There are any number of possibilities and use cases that this opens up, but the great enabler in all of them is APIs.

The IoT is enabling all sorts of things that just a few years ago we didn’t think possible.  Some of these are minor conveniences like the lights turning on when you get home.  Some are major medical breakthroughs allowing people with chronic conditions to better monitor their health.  And some, sit somewhere in between, like a small device to monitor washer fluid in your car; 99% of the time it’s a convenience, but on those rare occasions when you really need it, that little device could be the most critically important safety feature in my car.  The devices though are only half the equation; just tracking the data isn’t enough.  We need to make all that data we collect actionable.  And therein lies the value of APIs in the IoT story – the devices are what allow us to get the data, the APIs are what allow us to do what we want with it.    They can be used to keep us healthier, more comfortable in our homes and safer on the roads; now if only they could do something about this snow….

[apistrategy-blog]

Location, Location, Location

By: Kyle Riordan

A common refrain once reserved exclusively for the real estate market.  But increasingly the old adage of “Location is everything,” is moving beyond home buying to affect growth and trends in all sorts of different industries.  Suddenly every market vertical from retailers to car manufacturers is eyeing different ways to exploit location-based information.  For the consumer this is leading to a more personalized and (when done properly) contextualized experience, while it enables higher conversion rates for the sellers.

But how has this brave new world of location aware services come to be?  Well like so many other digital trends in the past few years it all starts with our phones and mobile devices.  That little machine that you once used to call your friends and tell them of your location can now share your pinpoint location within a few feet by dropping a pin on a map.  

The sharing of course does not end with just the people you know but extends to the apps and companies you trust.  Increasingly people are becoming more comfortable with sharing their location with the apps they use on a daily basis.  Some use cases simply require such sharing to be effective - Uber wouldn’t be very useful if the driver had no idea where to pick up a passenger.  But now it seems that every app download is immediately met with two prompts asking the user, “Can we send you push notifications?” and “Do you mind if we view your location?”  For just about any download, the first question seems pretty standard but the latter might sometimes be met with some skepticism. Why does my bank’s app for instance care where I am at a given time?  Well, it could be used to tell me where my closest branch is, or where I can find an ATM (one of their ATMs, one that isn’t going to charge me a fee to use it), or even, and perhaps most importantly, to help prevent fraud.  

Think of instances when you make an out of the ordinary purchase, particularly a big one – that new big screen TV you’ve been eyeing with an accompanying surround sound system. Presumably this is not the sort of purchase you are making on any sort of regular basis.  When this transaction comes across your card statement (as it seems to do almost instantaneously now) the bank can run a quick check to see if your mobile device (the one you enable location sharing on) with its app is at that location.  If it is, then all is well and good and congratulations on the new electronics.  But if when it runs that check your phone is sitting 50+ miles away at home it might be a good indication that this purchase should be red flagged.

 Though useful, that is a bit of an extreme case.  Location information can be used to improve far more germane experiences, like serving up more relevant and interesting ads.  Nobody likes obnoxious pop-ups, especially when it is for products that you would never consider buying.  Studies have shown that presenting users with ads that are contextually aware of search history and location can dramatically improve not just click through rates but also the rate with which you can get people in the doors of your store.  If one needs further validation that contextually aware apps work, take a look at what Facebook has been charging its advertisers.  Location might not be the driving factor in this instance but it nonetheless reinforces the point that contextually aware advertising works and location information can be a key element in that equation.

Whatever the use case though, the crucial enablers in these location-enabled services are APIs.  APIs are what allow the users to share their actual location with their app and the app in turn to relay more contextualized information like relevant restaurants in the area, or ads for local/nearby businesses.  They are what enable the transmission of all kinds of relevant data like geolocation, business descriptions, neighborhood information and so much more.   Overall it makes for a better user experience; one that is more engaging and one, in the case of nearby businesses, that is more likely to result in higher conversion rates.  So the next time you receive that, “Can we view your location?” prompt consider how it might be used.  It could turn a bland homogenous experience into one tailored specifically to you.

[apistrategy-blog]

Our Internet of Things Wish List

By: Intel Strategy Services

Tis the season and that of course means holiday cheer, too much food and exchanging gifts.  In the spirit of the holidays, we here on the Strategy Services team started thinking about what we’d put on our respective holiday wish lists.  With APIs and the Internet of Things always top of mind we started thinking, “If we could have any IoT device what would it be?”  Wearables, connected home devices, cool gadgets and gizmos, we let our imaginations run free and put together a list of things we want to see as part of the IoT.  Our wish list is below and we encourage you to join in on the fun; what do you want to want the future of IoT to be?  Share your ideas with us at #IOTwishlist and let’s make this holiday season one filled with connected cheer!

Rob's Wish

The dream of having all of our devices connected and communicating with one another is closer to reality than ever. My wish for the IoT is to go beyond merely connecting devices - we need to find ways to make them easier to control and program so that non-technical people can maximize their value as well. Sites like Zapier and IFTTT have led the way in making it easier for people to control the worklows of their devices and online accounts. But, to fully realize the power of the Internet of Things, we need to go further. We need to make it easy for users to access the data their devices generate, to direct that flow of data to systems that can analyze and act upon it, then send those results to trigger new devices, all in a way that is secure, visual, responsive and - above all - easy for everyone to use. It's a tall order, but well-built, well-designed APIs can lay the foundation that drives this work now and into the future. 

 Tameez's Wish

After a week of travel and scurrying my daughter to various places, I am in desperate need of a smart bag that knows where I’m heading, and what I should be packing with me.  My dream device would alert me before I leave to let me know  I’m forgetting something and help me avoid the dreaded, “I think I’m forgetting something,” feeling I inevitably have as I pull out of our driveway!

Devon's Wish

At the top of my #IOTwishlist is a Smart Pantry.  The idea of a refrigerator that could tell you when you needed to buy more milk is one that has been floating around since the beginning of the IoT trend.  It’s still a fantastic idea and one that has not come to fruition (much to my dismay).  I would like to have the ability to know what exactly I have in my cupboards AND refrigerator, when I bought it and how much is left.  I don’t want it to stop there though; I need a connected app that will then create smart grocery lists based on my normal weekly usage and generates a menu plan based on my calendar.  For instance, if I have dinner out every night next week except Thursday, my grocery list will automatically reduce the number of products I need to buy as well as suggest meals for Thursday.  The idea of coming home and selecting “20 minute meal with current ingredients” and receiving a list of quick recipes using only ingredients that I currently have in stock would be a weekday dream come true.

Kyle's Wish

There are tons of new wearables out there that track your movement and quantify it in various ways.  I’ve tried many of them myself and broken most.   I love that these unobtrusive devices can tell me how much I have walked, run and exercise its that little extra incentive to be and remain active.  But what about when I am being lazy (a fair amount of the time really)?  Some devices give me some insight into my sleep quality but that’s about it.  I want a device that does something for me when I start falling asleep.  Usually I start falling asleep when I am watching television and more often than not what I am watching is some sort of game.  Most times I wake up an hour later to see that my beloved Bruins are now down 3-1; but they were up when I dozed off!  What happened?  At this point it’d be kind of pointless to go back and watch what I have already missed since I already know what the score is going to end up being.  What I want is a wearable device that not only recognizes when I fall asleep but syncs with my DVR shutting off the television and starting a recording for whichever program I was watching.  That way when I wake up an hour later I can decide to either pick up where I left off or simply watch the recording in the morning.

Rahul's Wish

Sensors that can be augmented onto old hot water oil based boilers and burners, as well as their respective oil tanks. A low powered sensor on the oil tank that can notify you about the level of oil remaining (especially as you burn through it in the colder months) can certainly prevent running out of oil and an opportunity for monitoring consumption. Additionally, depending on how old your oil burner is (mine is 67) sometimes it just stops working. While getting a new one is probably the better long term approach, having some form of notification that things are amiss would be incredibly helpful and keep me from waking up to a house that's 55°.

[apistrategy-blog]

APIs All About Me

By: Kyle Riordan 

NEWSFLASH! Our attention spans are getting shorter (please forgive the capitalization but I needed something to keep you engaged for the entirety of the following sentence).  This may not surprise most readers as many of you have probably heard some of the shocking statistics on the number of emails an average professional receives each week and the hours spent in response (28, no really 28!).  Given these developments it’s no wonder that our go-to procrastination vices are looking to grab hold of our dwindling attention windows in more “bite sized” chunks.  Which medium is leading the charge on this front?  You guessed it, everyone’s favorite streaming video service, Netflix.  No longer will we have to slog through a full 22 minutes of our favorite TV reruns; one day soon we may be able to enjoy a far more reasonable array of five minute videos designed specifically for our phones (if you have already started to drift off keep reading, it gets better).

Alright so truth be told the reason Netflix is thinking about this has more to do with how we use our phones than it does with our ever shortening attention spans (though conceivably our phones are the primary culprit for this phenomenon).  As Gigaom cited, despite checking our phones an average of 150/day (seems high) we only spend about 10 minutes actually watching video (seems accurate).  Given this bit of information a 5 min clip seems to make sense though I question how effectively Netflix will be able to grab my attention and hold me for those 5 minutes.  I mean when I want to kill a couple of minutes with a video on my phone I generally go to YouTube, watch a short video and get my fill.  Differentiating from that experience enough to compel me to watch Netflix’s content may be tricky but hey, I’ve been wrong about its ideas before.  Chances are this initiative will be wildly successful and I’ll look like the guy chugging along in his buggy muttering to himself that this “Automobile thing will never catch on.”  Netflix does seem to have a way of being truly innovative, delivering new products and services even before we know we want them.  Admit it, when streaming Netflix initially came out it seemed a little odd to you didn’t it?

How is Netflix able to stay at the forefront of its customer’s demands?  Well its simple really, data, and Netflix has lots of it on us.  To some, that may sound ominous, but really what it does is allow Netflix to deliver unto us all that viewing goodness we’ve come to know and love tailored to our specific preferences - and that tailoring by the way is only going to get better.  The more data we provide the more customized our subsequent experiences can become.

Netflix is a prime example of the of this give and take model where the consumer provides feedback both actively (rating movies/shows) and passively (simply our selections or what we watch and/or put in our queues) and the provider in return delivers a more personalized experience designed to better engage the users’ preferences.  The model though is not limited to the video streaming market.  This customer/provider dynamic enabling personalization can be replicated across any number of industries.  The key to this dynamic is data, more specifically the access and analysis of data made possible by APIs.  APIs are the conduit that allow companies to not only extract the data they need from their customers but also to send it through some form of analytics engine in turn delivering a more personalized experience.

This format has become so common that we hardly notice it as it’s happening.  Spotify suggests new artists based on what you’ve listened to and liked, Amazon gives you purchasing suggestions based on what you and other people have bought in the past and Netflix has an interactive recommendation feature where you can tell it what sort of movies you are in the mood for and it spits out a list of those you’re most likely to enjoy.  Virtually all forms of commerce have gone digital: shopping, movies, even the books we read; but just because our sales associate is slowly being replaced by a screen doesn’t mean we have to forfeit the indulgence of a personalized experience.  That is the beauty of what data and APIs enable, taking what would have otherwise been a homogenous transaction and making it a personalized experience.

[apistrategy-blog]

The Month in APIs – Just the Important Parts

Cloud Storage Integration

By: Intel Strategy Services Team 

Not long ago when people thought of the cloud they either didn’t understand it or just associated it with the Internet as a whole. While it’s technically a crucial part to the Internet there’s a lot more that goes into the cloud than people realize. Nowadays, you may hear how “everything” is making its way to the cloud (if it hasn’t already). Almost every application you use needs to “talk” to the cloud or at least obtain some components and data from it.

While the consumer space has exploded with cloud-based integration, the enterprise has been slower more cautious in adoption. Security is important and ensuring only properly sanctioned applications have access to the data that is stored across the Internet is vital to enterprise adoption. This past month we saw some important additions to the space with more developer tools being unveiled to help integrate cloud-based storage solutions.

Amazon – Now with More APIs

To the regular consumer, Amazon is the one-stop-shop for almost everything. However, for some of us (especially those in the tech space), Amazon represents cloud based utility for everything from web servers to photo storage. Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) is practically synonymous with the cloud.

Enterprises have been somewhat reluctant to utilizing Amazon in place of their own private clouds or infrastructure but that trend has started to shift.  This undoubtedly is tied to the increased consumer adoption of cloud-based products.  Amazon is opening up APIs for consumer integration with its Amazon Cloud Drive. If more consumer adoption is fueled by this approach then it is safe to assume that enterprise/business adoption will eventually increase with additional tie-ins, security measures and formalizing other data-management access control rights.

ownCloud Helps Circumvent Silos

While ownCloud has been gaining adoption across enterprise IT for some time now, data has still been historically held in silos; on-premise or in the cloud in a very private fashion with some integration points for extensibility. The open-source nature of ownCloud’s approach has helped its traction with enterprises and now through its new APIs, integration can occur across other platforms including Dropbox, Google and AWS. The APIs allow for a systematic approach to file sharing and ensure synchronized data in accordance with developers’ needs and demands. 120 applications have been developed thus far with the ownCloud APIs and these integrations are expected to continue to grow.

Dropbox Focuses on the Enterprise

When someone mentions cloud storage, Dropbox is generally one of the first providers that comes to mind. While the consumer-facing Dropbox product has been integrated heavily in applications, due to a lack of secure integration options the business-facing side of things has yet to gain major traction.

Dropbox for Business is being rolled out as a separate product aimed at businesses and enterprises and to ensure the service will appeal to enterprises, Dropbox has opened up an API to allow partners to handle the demanding security and auditing needs for secure data transfers and synchronization. If Dropbox tried to build this all without partner integrations it would take them exponentially longer to ensure its built-in tools meet ever-changing demands of the enterprise. To help ensure this foothold, Dropbox has already partnered with Microsoft, Dell, and IBM.

There is plenty of growth potential for the consumer and enterprise cloud storage space.  Ensuring extensible apps that integrate with these cloud offerings through the usage of APIs will help accelerate that growth. Developers are always trying to figure out easier ways to integrate multiple services and new use-cases emerge constantly. Cloud storage is a simple solution but using it correctly, securely and easily requires the cross-application integration provided by APIs. 

[apistrategy-blog]

Smart(er) Books

By: Kyle Riordan 

In a surprising bit of news, PricewaterhouseCoopers has predicted that eBooks might soon surpass print sales.  I say this is surprising because if you are anything like me your first thought is probably something along the lines of, “You mean that hasn’t already happened?”  Admittedly the trajectory of the eBook market is not a topic that I have been following with any great fervor.  In fact, I would say most of my analysis of the eBook rise stems from what I see people reading on the T (subway).  In my highly scientific study the ratio appears to be 3 eBooks to every paperback/hardcover.  Given the consistency with which this phenomena is observed I still find it hard to fathom the idea that literature is more often being delivered on paper and cardboard than it is on Kindles and iPads.

There must be good reason for this, and really I think it just comes down to what people are accustomed to using.  I recently adopted eBooks - previously preferring to get my fix of Martin, Hiaasen and Chomksy (what? I can be eclectic) through the more traditional paper and print.  I thought I was one of the last holdouts but really I was just joining a rising tide. 

I am not sure what it was that kept me using the more cumbersome paperback. For some reason I felt that reading a traditional book was a more engaging experience; that tactile feel of actually flipping a page, the smell of the paper (ironically not a scent I particularly enjoy) and the overall sensation of holding something substantial in my hand.  In terms of physical senses paperbacks still have the edge, but is that what really makes for an engaging experience?  There is so much more you can do with books than what is available with paper and print.  If you haven’t done so in a while, pick up an eReader of your choice and have a go with a new book. You’ll probably find it’s a far more immersive experience than you had expected. 

The thing that makes these eBooks more immersive than their traditional counterparts is of course their ability to pull in other sources.  Lately I have been on a non-fiction binge specifically looking at political and economic issues.  Mostly the works focus on modern day systems with analysis and findings rooted in our history.  Using an eBook allows me to explore that history in greater depth and with far greater ease than I ever would have been able to do with a paperback.  If there is a period, term, principle, person, or anything that I am not familiar with, a single click brings me to a definition or even the Wikipedia page associated with the topic.  If you are anything like me this typically spurs a trip down the Wikipedia rabbit-hole and before you know it you’re knee deep in a topic that only minutes (ok sometimes hours) ago was completely foreign to you.  Some comment the author wrote, perhaps in passing, has suddenly become an exciting area of exploration.  Could you replicate this experience with a traditional book?  Sure - you could, but it would not be anywhere near as seamless an experience and would require you putting down your book to read something on a screen anyway; so what did all that page flipping really get us?

Alright, this is of course an API blog and not just my book club-esque musings so at this point you may be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with APIs?”  Well everything really.  APIs are at the forefront of the whole eBook experience - from the app on your device that gives you access to that library of titles, to the Wikipedia integration example discussed earlier. An eBook without the benefit of definitions, embedded information and eternal links would be, well just like any other book.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it does beg the question as to why one would choose an eBook over print (outside of the fact that the reader is hopefully slimmer). APIs are what allow eBook providers to tie together disparate services, taking what would have been plain text and transforming it into a launch point for literary discovery.  They are also what enable readers to stop reading your favorite Clancy novel on page 287 with your Kindle and pick it right back up in your iPhone app.  No more folding corners! I may be a recent convert but I am fully bought into the use of eBooks, and I have APIs to thank for it.  

[apistrategy-blog]

This Month in APIs - Just the Important Parts

The Internet of Things

By: Intel Mashery Strategy Services Team

Believe it or not there was some tech news outside of the new iPad Air, iPad mini (well sort of new, we’re not sure if just adding a touchID counts) and iMac announcements this month.  Did you see that display!?!  So did we, but the real news this month centered around the Internet of Things (IoT), which stands to have far greater impact on your daily life in the near future.  The interest and momentum around the IoT has grown so much over the past couple of years that entire conferences are springing up solely dedicated to it.  Industry and thought leaders are now tackling some of the most challenging questions including revenue potential, privacy concerns and consumer demand.

Industry Leaders’ Perspective

Gigaom hosted its first IoT conference, Structure Connect, bringing in industry leaders from notable companies including Google, SmartThings and Jawbone.  Attendees covered an array of topics affecting the emerging space including enabling technologies, revenue opportunities and privacy concerns.   As noted by most of the panelists, the industry is still in its infancy, so accurately predicting its trajectory and it’s path of evolution over the coming years is difficult.  IBM’s Paul Brody went so far as to say the IoT is “in a bubble phase.”  Despite such cautions, experts highlighted emerging technologies that may point the way to IoT success. IFTTT’s (If This Then That) Linden Tibbets offered his view on essential consumer tools for connected devices that are focused on building out the IOT infrastructure, naturally highlighting IFTTT’s importance as a connector both for the devices themselves and the disparate services that surround them. He also announced IFTTT’s plan to offer paid services, reinforcing their view of the services as an integral part to the industry.

In addition to addressing the “hows” of IoT,  panelists held in-depth discussions around consumer demand.  SmartThings CEO, Alex Hawkinson said his company finds that consumers who have taken their first steps into the IoT purchasing just a few devices tend to add to their collection almost immediately. SmartThings customers generally double their connected device count within a month of initial purchase. 

Devices Doing More

IoT bellwethers Nest and Chromecast rolled out brand new functionality this month.  Nest improved its learning software to analyze usage beyond the initial two weeks to better sync with its users’ habits, while integrating outside weather information onto its home screen.

Chromecast also improved its personalization features allowing users to create custom “Backdrops” (essentially a home screen for your television) using their photos and different feeds news and photography feeds.   The update also enables some multiscreen interactivity.

But Where’s the Money?   

Among the biggest challenges for companies entering the IoT space is identifying revenue opportunities.  To some, the big revenue opportunity lies not with the devices themselves, but with the services that surround them. “Once a static product is connected,” says Jahangir Mohammed, CEO of Jasper, “it becomes a service opportunity.”  That service opportunity offers the prospect of recurring revenue, as opposed to the one-time purchase of a product. Device manufacturers should pursue the opportunity to build entire ecosystems around their products.

What do all of these varying thoughts and opinions mean for the IoT as a whole?  Well, for one thing, it indicates that many parts of what will constitute the IoT still need to be fleshed out.  The notion that the IoT is in a bubble phase could be a bit sensationalistic – more accurately it seems still in its infancy stage (at least the consumer based IoT) with  major players are still trying to carve out their space.  For instance, despite notable consumer acceptance in areas like fitness trackers, connected devices are still very much relegated to the early adopters.  Saying this constitutes a bubble phase seems a bit hyperbolic. 

Though the consumer IoT may still be in its infancy, the industrial IoT is already in full swing with giants like GE and Wayne Fueling Systems leveraging device connectivity to transform the way they do business.  GE alone monitors 10 million sensors to better manage its industrial machines and  Wayne Fueling Systems is using the IoT to modernize the way it operates.  With connected gas pumps Wayne can serve up useful aggregated data to its retailers and deploy changes in the cloud without any site downtime. The industrial IoT is seeing the most traction right now but there is headway being made in prominent consumer IoT fields such as the connected home.  We need only look to the news from Nest and Chromecast to see how existing products are being built out further and improved upon.

Hawkinson’s assertion that SmartThings customers often double the number of their connected devices within a month could be attributed not to the success of the IoT, but to those devices’ inability to multitask.  As connected devices become less one-dimensional, the need to for multiple devices will dissipate.  History shows that consumers tend to consolidate whenever possible.  Just look at how mobile phones went from being just phones to phones with cameras, then to expanded communication devices integrating email. Modern smartphones are essentially little computers we all carry in our pocket.  Google seems to have the right idea - if you have a good interface, give consumers more to do with it (within reason, nobody wants their twitter feed on their Nest).  That is precisely where APIs come in to play serving as that medium transforming product-based companies into service-based companies.  That transformation is where the big revenue opportunity lies for the IoT market.  Sure, the money a company makes off that one time hardware purchase is nice, but connecting that device to relevant data flowing in and out via APIs can lead to a sustainable, recurring stream of cash .  Consumers may be willing to pay for premium functionality and developers will pay for access to all of the big data these connected devices serve up.  What was once a one-time purchase suddenly becomes a recurring sale.

Making this shift is key to a company’s sustained success in the IoT market.  Moving from a product-based company to a service-based company is no easy task, but APIs can make that transition more seamless.  The demands in the IOT market are still being fleshed out, and the hardware providers need a way to grow and evolve to meet those demands.  Rolling out new versions of their hardware on a consistent basis isn’t sustainable.  APIs give these companies the means to evolve their devices without starting up the assembly plant for every new set of specs.  The industry may be in its infancy, but one thing is clear: if the Internet of Things is going to continue to grow, APIs will play a big role.   

[apistrategy-blog]

This Month in APIs - Just the Important Parts

Payment Integrations

By: Intel Mashery Strategy Services Team

We’ve all been using our credit cards to make online purchases for the better part of the last fifteen years. There’s a general workflow we’ve all come to expect - you add items to your virtual cart, fill out a form with all of your personal information and then cross your fingers in hoping the transaction went through successfully. Moments later an e-mail confirmation seals the deal and you wait to receive your shipment. This general workflow and process has mostly remained unchanged over this entire decade plus period; an eternity in the realm of innovation. 

The biggest news to hit September in the payment industry was the introduction of Apple Pay alongside the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Both of which are Apple’s first smartphones to feature NFC (Near Field Communication) enabling iPhone users to pay for their goods by just using their smartphones. While Google Wallet and other services have existed for some time, many believe mass adoption will now start to take place thanks to Apple’s partnerships with large banks like Chase and Citibank.

APIs are accelerating the use of Apple Pay and payment integrations. Social media is the next venture to capture your hard earned dollar. If the process is simplified and easy whilst still being secure, why not?

Facebook Buy Button 

Stripe is a 150-person startup and its entire business model revolves around easily integrating and accepting payments via APIs They have partnered with Facebook to allow for quick and easy purchasing right on Facebook. With this new integration and partnership, Facebook will empower their users to purchase goods directly through their newsfeed with an integrated “Buy” button. Just as one would “Like” a particular story, through the use of Stripe’s APIs and the new “Buy” button, a user can purchase goods without ever leaving their respective newsfeed.

Twitter Buy Button

Without any surprise, Twitter is also incorporating this level of integration into its timeline. Again, users will have the ability to purchase goods directly through their Twitter feed without ever having to leave the app. Much like the setup process for Apple Pay, a user would setup their payment preferences one time, and then have the ability to quickly purchase items available in their respective feeds without having to enter in all of their information and go through the now-archaic workflow of online transactions.

#AmazonCart

Further demonstrating how APIs are being used to provide new innovative ways to buy things online, Amazon has unveiled a new interesting concept through the use of a hashtag on Twitter. Basically, if you’re browsing through Twitter and come across a product or item you’d like to purchase, you can Reply to that tweet with the hashtag, #AmazonCart and it will be automatically added to your Amazon shopping cart. While this still plays into the model of going to Amazon and performing a checkout, it accelerates the notion of seeing a product you want via social media and being able to successfully purchase it through a trusted vendor. I’m sure Amazon will want to one day include their 1-click Buy it Now option with Twitter as well. Perhaps we’ll see that partnership open up as well.

Many of these payment integrations aim to make the entire process easier. Historically, one would have to sign up to become an authorized merchant for the respective credit card companies, and then manually setup the workflow and processes to ensure they were PCI Compliant, securely obtained all the necessary payment information and correctly handle payments along with any errors that may occur in the form. Stripe, Braintree (PayPal), Google Wallet, and now Apple Pay are looking to disrupt the payment space. 

Factoring in the Internet of Things and having a connected everything, perhaps more devices and appliances can incorporate “Buy” buttons of their own. With the use of the appropriate APIs and the necessary up-front validation of authorizing payments, the potential increases tenfold for ease and smart purchasing. An example could be when your cat’s dry-food auto-feeder reaches below a certain level, more food could be ordered automatically. Or, consequently the device could notify you on your smartphone that the food has run low immediately followed by a “Buy More” button to re-purchase another bag of dry-food.

This opens up opportunities for healthcare as your provider could opt for you to purchase prescription-based medicine through a mailed prescription system versus going to the local drugstore via their smartphone app. The app could potentially keep track of when you’ve been prescribed new medicine and again – just a simple click of “Fill” or “Refill” button could be used to streamline this entire process. Not only would you be getting insurance approved meds, but all of the transactional work would be taken care of removing the hassle of figuring out who paid what and where.

[apistrategy-blog]

The Next Gen Living Room

By: Rahul Gilani

When it comes to video games one generally thinks of vivid graphics, high scores, and yelling at one another through fierce competition. The previous and current generation of video game consoles do quite a bit more than just playing games in surround sound and high definition. They feature rich media and entertainment apps from sports news to streaming full-length movies. Of course, all of this is accomplished through seamless integration powered by APIs running in the background. 

Microsoft and Sony are the leaders in the living room space. Both video game consoles aim to be the centralized media and entertainment hub for the living room. While they both offer a decent amount of content and access right out of the box, what would happen if they opened up their platforms a bit more?  Currently, one would have to be a reputable gaming studio or recognizable brand to have an app added in this next gen marketplace. For the likes of companies like ESPN and Netflix, two household brands with enough followers to make an impact it makes sense for Microsoft and Sony to enable their consoles to utilize these 3rd party apps to extend the functionality of these primarily gaming consoles. 

But what about the independent developer who believes he/she has an interesting or helpful idea to bring to your living room? What hurdles would one need to jump to get an application approved for distribution on the latest and greatest gaming machines? Unfortunately, much of that information is difficult to find, but Microsoft and Sony are taking steps to make it a bit clearer and remove some of the obstacles. 

If the console makers created a more accessible “App Store” for their Xboxes and PlayStations, more developers could reach the rather untapped living room market. We’ve seen many devices that work in the living room, the Apple TV, Smart TVs, Connected Blu-Ray players - short of the Roku player, most of these interfaces have had rather closed systems and only provide what the manufacturers determine should be available. I believe it’s time to open these APIs up, and to allow developers to unleash the untapped potential of the living room. Additional revenue, whether it’s from the apps themselves or through advertising has immense potential. 

It appears that Microsoft at least had the intentions of going down this route a bit when it announced its latest console, the Xbox One, in  early 2013. The aim was to have the Xbox One be the Internet-of-Things “hub” for your house. It certainly has the connectivity and horsepower to run that gamut of devices. Microsoft had dubbed it “Home 2.0” but due to a lack of sales, a change in leadership and realizing the core audience of the Xbox platform felt abandoned, Microsoft needed to right the ship and focus on gaming first. Perhaps we’ll see this Home 2.0 initiative in the coming years along with an App Store.

The APIs are there. The console manufacturers just need to embrace the developers more and start to think bigger. Even Apple needs to open up the App Store for their Apple TV. It’s running iOS as the iPhone and iPad already do, but only established partnerships with approved content can be added as additional “channels” to the Apple TV. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, recently stated that the Apple TV isn’t a hobby anymore with more than 20 million users. Apple is all about profit margins. Let the 20 million consumers purchase 3rd party apps for the TV and expand the reach and capability of the device. Microsoft and Sony probably see this untapped potential all the time and are in the perfect position to start utilizing their powerful gaming machines to open up the living room.  Now these companies just need to embrace the developers as they have in other markets and watch the creativity and connectivity flourish, while hopefully increasing revenues and profits as well.

[apistrategy-blog]

This Month in APIs - Just the Important Parts

Open vs. Closed Programs – The Renewed Debate

By: Intel Mashery Strategy Services Team

For as long as APIs have been around there seems to have been a persistent question, “How do we best leverage these? Is it best to keep them internal, offer them to partners or open them up to everyone?”  Deciding on who gets to use your API and the content they are allowed to access is one of the most important questions a company can ask itself when thinking about it’s API program.  It is a pivotal question that has a cascading effect on all other decisions that go into the program. 

This past month saw some notable API programs electing to shift their Open vs. Closed Program strategy with both ESPN and Aetna electing to shutter the doors on their Open programs. But it wasn’t all misfortune for the developer community as one highly anticipated program rolled into the Open market with Uber launching its API to open developers.  That’s a lot to take in so let’s take a quick look at what happened.

Carepass Dropped

In the waning days of August Aetna announced that it would officially be discontinuing its Carepass program by the end of 2014.  Not surprisingly, this was deemed pretty big news, particularly within the healthcare space.  Offering explanation to its users and the general public regarding the reasoning behind this decision, Aetna cited a number of different factors. 

One of which was a lack of consumer buy-in from both Aetna users and those outside their network.  Like any other product in the market it doesn’t necessarily matter how great a product is itself - if consumers aren’t interested, success is going to be a challenge.  Unfortunately the lack of widespread buy-in permeated into the provider market as well with Forrester’s Peter Mueller citing a lack of integration with EHR (Electronic Health Record) systems as one of the primary contributors to a lack of traction. 

The biggest culprit though may have had nothing to do with the outside world’s acceptance of the program but rather Aetna’s own internal view of it.  According to Mueller, Carepass “didn’t have the buy-in from all parts of the organization.”  When this happens it doesn’t matter what type of developer a program targets, the road to success is going to be an uphill battle. 

ESPN Retires Its Open Program

Like Aetna, ESPN has elected to discontinue its Open developer program.  ESPN announced its closure in July noting it will no longer be issuing 3rd party developer keys.  December of this year has been targeted for full shutdown.  ESPN cited a re-alignment of resources to core ESPN products as one of the primary reasons behind the closure.

Your Uber API Has Arrived

But don’t worry developers it isn’t all, “Farewell (insert API program), we barely knew thee.” Uber is opening up its API to third party developers giving you a chance to integrate its functionality directly into your applications.  For Uber, this new phase in its API program is designed to help expand its reach and attain new customers - allowing end users to access and try Uber from outside its own application.  And there is of course something in it for the developer too as Uber is giving developers that integrate the API some free credits.  The amount thus far is undisclosed but hey cab fare isn’t cheap, it’s a nice little perk for sure.

What do these closings and openings mean for the Open vs. Closed debate?  Well, very little in the grand scheme of things.  What the two closings represent is a shift in how the two relevant companies view their APIs and where they see the most value.  Strictly speaking, just because Aetna and ESPN do not think it is in their best interest to continue offering Open APIs does not mean that no company should.  And just because Uber wants to offer its API to the world doesn’t mean that would be the right choice for your company. 

These instances show is how important it is to take a step back and really look at the value proposition behind your API keeping in mind that the value proposition is a two way street.  Sure third party developers may get a ton of value from what you have to offer but there has to be something in it for your company as well.  If there isn’t, that is where the problems start to arise and getting the overall organization to support the program is going to be exceptionally difficult.

There are plenty of arguments to be made for Open, 3rd party developer programs.  They can be a great way for a start-up to gain recognition.  They can expand the reach of a company’s customer base integrating into new apps and ultimately reaching more people.  They can be a great recruiting tool; if someone designs a killer app using your API, wouldn’t you love to contact and possibly hire that person?  You can go to hackathons, particularly college hacks and find the best and brightest, picking up great interns and hopefully great new employees.  There is so much you can do but the real question is what should you do?  All these things are great but when asking, “Does doing this bring me some sort of value?” is answered with a “no” then simply put, an Open program may not be for you.  And that by the way is fine; as noted previously opening up your API is a two way street- if everyone does not benefit then ultimately no one wins.

Particularly with the closings people seem to be asking, “What does this mean for APIs in general and within the relevant industries?”  Ultimately it means very little.  APIs or APIs within healthcare is too general and widespread of a topic for one company, even a massive one to have a uniformly indicative effect on the entire industry.  The value proposition for an API, just like any other product a company offers, is specific to a certain market and determining what that market is beforehand and aligning the strategy accordingly is pivotal to success.

[apistrategy-blog]

5 Things to Understand About Successful “Open” APIs

This guest post comes from Intel’s Chuck Freedman API Strategist and Director of Vertical Insights, always looking at the benefits of APIs from many perspectives.

Take a closer look at the recently celebrated and deservedly promising Uber Open API launch and you won’t see a free-for-all service. There’s nothing about this platform, or any successful platform for that matter, that says “Here are our APIs and do whatever with them you please.”

To launch a successful platform, the true use of Open in the API sense is to selectively expose the very same services, content or data a company uses itself. This is motivated by partner demand and a calculated understanding that the platform can ultimately offer something of value to those outside the organization.

Let’s walk through some common misconceptions I often hear regarding successful, Open API programs:

1)   Open APIs are not truly “open:"

They are not truly open, rather they are well-managed APIs, guarded, controlled and managed by keys which let the platform owners determine who can access the platform and at what frequency. Think of how theme parks like Disney World “open.” Guests can’t just flock in and enjoy rides and food without first passing through ticket gates. Successful open API programs rely on similar gates to control the flow of access to their platform. Looking at the newly launched Uber developer page you’ll find documentation and tutorials. However, you won’t be able to properly make API calls into the platform without first registering your app and receiving an authorization key to append to all calls you’ll make going forward (and rightfully so). This is how the platform team, using proper tools, will manage access while also understanding API usage through reporting and other techniques. 

2)   Open API programs never seem to offer up the raw access to services or data they’ve often used internally:

With an approach similar to how a product is managed, good platform teams will understand how external partners and developers may need to use their API and craft polished endpoints and data. The result gives intended developers a better starting point, a refined approach to engage the platform and induces more quality integrations. Although we can’t peek into see how platforms are consumed internally, for those of us who have worked on platforms know this: it’s easy to recognize, in the case of Uber and other successful app companies that have launched platforms, the platform services were being used and iterated internally for some time. Bottom line – it’s no accident that after years of using their own service, a platform openly launches in an elegant manner with the success of its developers in mind.

3)   Many promising Open platforms will launch with integration and app ideas ready to share:

A mark of successful platforms has been their ability to inspire and cultivate valuable apps from their newfound developer communities. A good developer portal or blog post will even challenge developers with examples and listed possibilities of what can be done. Of course, the Uber platform opens with a list of ways the Uber API can add value to your app (Uber API). Referencing either existing partnerships or those the platform team envisions.  The list shows careful thought into the launch of the platform and invites partners and developers to expand on what’s totally possible.

4)   Some Open APIs don’t last forever:  Fresh off of its launch, Uber shows no signs of slowing down. However, as developers of previously “Open” platforms like Netflix, ESPN and Twitter would tell you, “Code-with-caution.”   Realize a great Open platform is launched to create mutual value. For the developer, you’re getting access to features or content that may be well beyond your reach or ability to reproduce. For the platform, opening APIs is about exploration, creating value for existing or extended users and maybe the potential/intent to drive some revenue in the process. Accepting a key to an Open program is a bit of a contract and if partners and developers hold up their end of the bargain the platform will remain Open to drive innovation.

5)   Open API access usually represents a wildcard use of the platform:  In most cases, the platform is actually being used by the company itself – for their own purposes. Often, the API is designed to give internal groups, or outside vendors, controlled access to the platform in support of scalable development of the company’s own web, mobile and desktop app integrations. After internal use, a successful platform exists to also support targeted partner use, which may be paid for or intended to bring mutual value to the company’s business partners. Often, the “Open” aspect of the platform is a byproduct of these internal and partner use cases, making select services available to drive innovation. A good API portal and solid documentation support easy discoverability to companies and developers. Using advanced tools, authorization keys can be auto-provisioned granting sufficient, but limited access to allow for these wildcard integrations. Whether fostering smaller companies to build new things, Open platforms can really succeed when apps built through open access can graduate to recognized and valuable partner integrations. 

There are many arguments made among top API strategists and evangelists that more platforms should be Open. For a platform to maintain success in making APIs available outside its organization a strong set of strategies and tools need to be in place. One of the best things a platform can do when considering an “Open” launch is to understand the possibilities of what 3rd party partners and developers can actually bring. If the platform can be beneficial to all parties, and the company is open to driving innovation beyond itself and its partners, then those API ticket gates should be “Opened”. Follow Chuck Freedman on Twitter and read more of his posts from Intel’s Services Division blog. 

[apistrategy-blog]

This Month in APIs - Just the Important Parts

Smarter Travel

By: Kyle Riordan 

On the Strategy Services team, we spend a great deal of time and effort keeping our fingers on the pulse of the API and tech industry.  We’re sure you do too, otherwise why would you be here reading this?  It can’t be for my witty quips - they’re just not that clever.  But, for even the most serial tech readers out there, the rate with which the industry moves is just astonishing; new start ups, acquisitions, emerging technologies, APIs and apps that seemingly spring up out of nowhere can all be a bit much to track.  It is one of the main parts of my profession and even I sometimes find it to be overwhelming.  

That is why we are launching a new effort as part of this blog to post a sort of “month in review.”  Though not an exhaustive summation of the past month (how could we possibly fit that into a single post?) it will serve as a sort of highlight reel showing you some of the more interesting things that have happened while we throw in our two cents.  A sort of SportsCenter Top 10 for the API space (sorry - no dunks in our version) designed to tell you a story without making you read a month’s worth of tech news.

For our first installment, we selected a topic that seems to be taking the travel and hospitality industry by storm: enabling access through our smartphones and wearables.  It seems every business segment within the industry, from trains to hotels, is looking to open new doors (both literally and figuratively) using consumers’ smartphones and wearable devices. Travel saw some interesting announcements from both the London Public Transport Network and SITA, while hospitality featured some amazing new plans for innovation from Hilton. That’s a pretty wide range of companies, and all of this in a single month! 

Old Transit – New Tix

The London Public Transport Network incorporates the world’s first underground railway system dating back over 150 years, but this old network is looking to become about as modern as subway systems come, integrating contactless mobile payments into its stations.  The update will allow users to pay their tube fair with any mobile device containing an NFC chip and mobile payment app linked to their back account.  Sorry iPhone users, no NFC chip for us - we have to stick to the old fashioned method.  Though not everyone will be able to use this new technology, it will certainly make the morning commute easier for those who can and cut down on the lines for everyone else. 

Air Aware Wearables

SITA is also looking to make the way you travel - how you fly in this case - easier.  Unlike London Transport though, SITA is looking beyond our phones to the growing interest and use in smart watches.  Just this past month SITA started exposing a new API designed for Android watch wearers.  Once adopted by the airlines, the API will enable passengers to receive alerts reminding them of flight time and location and allowing them to pull up their boarding pass and scan ready barcode with a couple of quick swipes.

Hilton Enhances the Mobile Experience

But what good is all this newly convenient travel if you don’t have an equally convenient experience once you arrive at your destination?  Hilton addressed that question by announcing they now allow smartphone users to select their room before check-in.  Users will be able to access photos of the room as well as the floor plan.  Topping that, they also plan to start rolling out smartphone powered room keys to its hotels in 2015.  A convenient option for people like me who always remember their phone, but never, ever remembers the key card left on the nightstand.  Oh, and good news fellow iPhone users - this initiative is designed for both Android and iOS users, so this is one we will actually be able to get in on.

The Little Things Lead to Greater Things

As July demonstrates, the travel industry is opening itself up to a whole new world of possibilities through its APIs.  Everyday travel, like your workweek subway ride, is getting easier, flying is becoming less of a hassle, and no longer will we have to walk back down to the main desk to explain that we lost our room key…again.   Looking at these instances in a vacuum, it is easy to see them as a nice little perk, a bit of convenience but really nothing earth shattering; and that’s probably true.  But, when we take a step back and realize the broader implications of initiatives like these, it speaks to the world to come, a world where normal events and occurrences are more often than not automated by the everyday items we wear on our person and keep in our pockets. 

That’s what APIs and the Internet of Things are currently enabling for us all.  Yes, for now, its just small niceties like our tube pass, boarding pass or room key, but this is only a tiny sample of the larger efforts the travel industry is undertaking, and virtually every other industry as well.  These small niceties over time will continue to pile on and, before long, we will be immersed in a world that interacts and responds to us even before we make any demand of it.  Think of that level of convenience in our homes, in our cars, when we are at work, when we travel and all the time and energy it will save us.  Some might see this vision as the embodiment in laziness, but it’s not - in fact it’s the opposite, offloading the menial tasks to machines so we can work more efficiently in the office and have more time outside of it to pursue our own interests in precisely the same way we automate tasks to our non-connected machines today.  Hey, you make a pot of coffee using a coffeemaker in the morning, don’t you? 

There are still a loT of challenges and questions that the industries emerging around the Internet of Things need to answer.  But, as they do, the rate with which we receive all of these “niceties” is only going to accelerate, and a connected automated world will be upon us before we know it. So, “All aboard!  Please keep your seatbacks and tray tables in their upright locked position.  And enjoy your connected stay.”

Contribution From: Rahul Gilani

[apistrategy-blog]

Stop Talking About Hypermedia and REST - Start Building Adaptable APIs

By: Rob Zazueta

I had a brief moment of enlightenment at last week’s API Craft conference in Detroit while leading a session I titled “How Do We Help Developers Implement the APIs of Tomorrow (or Today)?” Many of the responses coming back from the crowd took some form of “use hypermedia.” Listening to these and seeking answers as to how to best communicate this to developers, I felt the need to stop the conversation to ask what I thought should be a simple question. 

“What is hypermedia?”

Many of us had spent the previous day listening to a panel of API experts talk about hypermedia and how the various response formats they created (JSON-LD, Hydra, Siren, HAL, etc.) addressed and supported it. In fact, I could see some of those same experts in the crowd standing before me, all of them searching for a way to express the right way to respond.

“Like, in one sentence?” piped one brave soul. “I don’t think you can do it in one sentence.” 

Another answered by describing it as “an API which can be documented without writing one single absolute URL or relative URL path,” which speaks to hypermedia’s apparent ability to self-document, but does little to explain exactly how that’s implemented. 

This should have been an easy question to answer, but it turns out even the experts grope for a description when pressed. For my part, I consider an API to support hypermedia when it does the following:

Each resource points to related resources and available actions using the method native to its protocol (i.e. using URIs over HTTP)

Each resource clearly defines its media type so a client knows what it’s parsing (i.e. by providing a MIME type in the “Content-Type” response header) and responds appropriately when requested to return a specific media type (i.e. when a client lists it specifically in the “Accepts” request header)

Each resource points to a machine-readable description of how to parse its media type. (i.e. through one of the many emerging API descriptor languages, such as I/O Docs, Swagger, RAML and Blueprint)

Few protocols outside of HTTP provide for this full set of actions, which is appropriate since the “H” in “HTTP” stands for “Hypertext”. In other words, it’s a protocol built specifically to deal with hypermedia. This becomes obvious once you realize that the most robust hypermedia client in the world today is the very browser you’re using to read this post.

To describe how a hypermedia API should operate, Brian Sletten suggested at last year’s REST Fest conference that you should ask yourself, “What Would the Browser Do?” Out of the box, most web browsers can handle the most common media types - the text-only text/html, text/xml and text/json media types, of course, but also image/jpeg, image/png and image/gif, which each define graphical image formats expressed in binary requiring special parsing to display. When greeted by a media type it doesn’t recognize - application/x-shockwave-flash, for example, which is used when an Adobe Flash object is being sent - most browsers have a facility to search for and install a plugin that can handle that media type inline with the rest of what it’s displaying. 

This makes the browser highly adaptable as new media types representing different technologies arise. So long as a plug-in has been created for the browser and the browser can find it, it will adjust. This adaptability is what has made the web a dominant standard over the last 20 years. It’s not the browsers, but their ability to use the hypermedia facilities used by servers to be able to adjust as new data types become available.  

I’ve attempted to express this in the NARWHL API design framework I developed earlier this year. NARWHL arose from my observation that development teams creating APIs were getting too caught up in the implementation details - what should the URIs look like? Should everything be expressed as links and traversed from the root, or should they be atomic? And what response format should we use? What if the format we choose doesn’t fit our model? 

NARWHL is intended to get past these details, providing a clear path forward on how to design an API that can change as business needs change and standards start to settle without disrupting client applications any more than necessary. While it accomplishes this by adhering to hypermedia constraints, the ultimate goal is to build adaptable APIs. Hypermedia is just the means, adaptability is the ends.  

Your URI layouts, response formats and descriptor language choice are implementation details - on that all the experts at API Craft could agree. The number of different ways you can create a RESTful API is many, varied and growing and shows no signs of settling down any time soon. If you are building an API intended to be used today, but are worried about whether it will still work tomorrow, allow me to calm your fears. Build the API today that best suits your needs and fits your model. Choose a descriptor language that best allows you to describe it. Make sure every response includes the Content-Type that represents it and make sure there’s a common way for a client to request the descriptor definition for that Content-Type (NARWHL recommends using a “Link” header in the response with the “rel” set to “service”, but I will soon be adding another recommendation that can complement or potentially replace that). And make sure you express every possible transition/action available to a resource as well as its related resources in the form of links, including the relationship (expressed using the “rel” parameter) and the method (i.e. “GET”, “PUT”, “POST” and “DELETE”). Encourage your client developers to trust your links, pay attention to your Content-Types, make use of the Accepts header and use your descriptor documents to parse your responses in real time.  

Following these simple rules today will ensure your API adapts to the needs of tomorrow. Free yourself from worrying too much about the implementation details and instead focus on modeling your API to provide flexible solutions that address the challenges your developer customers are solving. If you want to build a successful API, build an adaptable API.

[apistrategy-blog]

Let a Sleeping Baby Lie

By: Devon Biondi

As a first time soon to be mother you can imagine that I have been inundated with advice; some good, some odd and, well, a few things in between.  It’s fairly easy to drive yourself mad making sense of it all, but, like most things, I have been relying on my good ol’ iPhone for shortcuts and it hasn’t let me down.  The technology around child rearing has made incredible advancements in just the past couple of years.  It seems every aspect of rearing a baby from conception to pregnancy to monitoring has progressed in leaps and bounds - and most of it can be controlled from your smartphone.  

If we flash back in time for a moment, the first baby monitor was invented in 1937 by the Zenith Radio Corporation as a reaction to the Lindbergh kidnapping in 1932.   It’s true, I can’t make this stuff up.  It was a two-part set: the “Guardian Ear” transmitter, which was plugged in near the infant’s crib, and the “Radio Nurse”, which was placed with the caregiver.  Unfortunately, it picked up quite a bit of unnecessary signals, so the monitor never became a must-have nursery item.  

Fast-forward to today and no nursery is complete without a video monitor, allowing panicky new parents to carefully monitor every noise and movement from their little one’s crib.  Dropcam, which is not exclusively a baby monitor, but a wireless camera you can control from your smartphone, has taken it a step farther by not only allowing two-way talk, but also detecting any strange movements in your nursery.  You can live stream to your phone as well as the web so that eager grandparents can always be spying checking in on you.  I was lucky enough to receive one of these from my awesome co-workers and, with Dropcam’s beta API program, I am sure there will be lots of great mashups in the near future.

However, the monitoring advancements don’t stop there.  At CES this year, our very own Intel announced that the Edison Chip would be used in the Mimo Baby Monitor.  

The Mimo is a onesie that you put on your infant to monitor breathing, temperature, the baby’s movements and sleep cycle.  The starter kit has a hefty price tag of $200, but, for peace of mind that your little one is safe, that seems like a steal to me.  While there are other similar devices out there, such as the still in stealth mode Sproutling and the slightly less well-designed Owlet, it seems that video monitors may soon be a thing of the past.  Again, as a new, slightly paranoid parent, the ability to monitor every aspect of my sleeping infant sounds amazing, but I’ll report back after my little one arrives.

[apistrategy-blog]

Apple <3 Devs

By: Rahul Gilani

Monday marked the opening of the 25th World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) for Apple. Led primarily by Apple CEO Tim Cook and Senior Vice President, Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, the two-hour presentation focused on the newest versions of Apple’s desktop and mobile operating systems and the developers that will shape them.

The changes coming to the newest version of OS X 10.10 Yosemite featured more customizations and integration with Notification Center, creating a sidebar that allows users to receive alerts and updates with a glance. Apple also showcased tighter integration within Spotlight - OS X’s search functionality - by returning web results and other sources in search results. For example, users that search a movie title will receive showtimes and theaters playing the feature. The core of the OS X update encourages more integration with desktop apps and connected sources across the web. Of course, none of this would be possible without usable APIs. 

Apple unveiled a plethora of new features for its mobile operating system, iOS 8, which will be publicly released later this fall. One of the most telling signs that Apple sees the value in unlocking more functionality for developers is the announcement of introducing 4,000 new APIs for integration at the OS level.

One of the new APIs that iOS 8 opens for developers is access to TouchID, Apple’s proprietary fingerprint scanner that was originally limited to unlocking the device and authenticating app purchases. Don’t we have enough passwords and logins to worry about? Those who have an iPhone 5s (or, presumably, future Apple devices to be unveiled later this year) will experience this added functionality. Of course, new integrations will depend on developers finding use-cases where a fingerprint ID makes life easier with their respective apps.

Much like what iOS’ Passbook did with movie tickets, boarding passes, and Starbucks, Apple unveiled HealthKit and HomeKit to provide centralized functionality for connected health and home applications respectively.

With the Internet of Things bringing sensors to everything, and the exponential adoption of wearables, the resulting trove of health, fitness, and activity data has spawned a multitude of new apps that track your well-being. Apple’s HealthKit will act as a centralized repository for all these health-related metrics that can be used to, hopefully, lead us all to healthier lives. 

Likewise, the HomeKit API intends to make your home smarter and up to par with things we’ve seen since we were children watching The Jetsons. The idea is to encourage app developers to incorporate additional hardware that will be installed throughout the home to assist with locks, lights, cameras, doors, thermostats, plugs and switches. HomeKit helps developers securely pair to and control devices, group them together and integrate with Siri for voice commands. In talking about this last feature, Craig Federighi suggested a scenario where you could tell Siri to “get ready for bed” and the associated app would lock the doors, set the thermostat and dim the lights. Right now, I have an automatic timer for my outside lights. While that’s certainly helpful, it’s not very smart, nor can anything else integrate with that switch.

Something that has been foreign to Apple devices until now are app level extension integrations., functionality Android devices have had for years. A user on an Android device can bring up a photo and share it with any other installed apps that have told the system they can work with it. In contrast, Apple limited the information that could be shared between applications to whichever services they chose for that year. By introducing extensions, each of these apps can talk to each other directly, raising the iOS integration level to that of Android.

Notification Center was a welcome addition to iOS, but it, too, has been lacking until this newest version. App developers will now be able to create dynamic widgets that can be added to the Notification Center. An example of this is ESPN showing the latest sports scores with a quick swipe down, resulting in real-time updates.

But the biggest reaction from the developer community came when Apple unveiled its new programming language, Swift. The language’s scripting-like syntax is intended to make developing apps for iOS and OS X easier and faster than its predecessor, Objective-C, whose verbosity and complexity was seen by many developers a bottleneck to adoption. Apple kept much of that complexity out of Swift and demoed an impressive “Playground” to get developers up and running in no time.

With 4,000 new iOS APIs, extensions, widgets, and Swift, Apple clearly demonstrated its commitment to developers is as strong as ever.