As of April, 2013 ProgrammableWeb, the internet’s leading site for sharing APIs and API mashups, has hosted over 9,000 APIs. This number has been growing exponentially since 2005 when the site was created. But who’s making these APIs and what does that mean for businesses?
Businesses are the ones creating these APIs; Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and eBay are some of the biggest contributors. They’re creating APIs to problem solve different aspects of their business, whether its chat clients, mapping, searches or… basically anything. Once a business has created and posted their API, it’s free game. Anyone with the technical know-how can take the code the business has provided and incorporate it into their own software or create a mashup with a second API.
We’ll use Google as an example. One of the APIs Google has provided on ProgrammableWeb is Blogger, it allows client applications to view and update Blogger content. Then, if, for example, the company Bike Rides in California wanted to create a blogging application for their website they would take the Blogger API that Google had provided and incorporate it into their code. Now, their website can view and update Blogger content just as Google had programmed their API to do. Bike Rides in California can now reap the benefits of the Blogger application, and Google’s Blogger is used on another site giving it more exposure and use; it’s a win-win for both.
SmartFile has released our very own API. With our API, developers can quickly and easily integrate file sharing and management into their applications with less code. We’ve posted the API and it’s available for developers to incorporate into their applications.
In an age when more and more companies are moving to mobile and web applications are the norm, businesses need a way to include themselves in all of this. And that’s what an API does. APIs allow developers and businesses to quickly add features to their applications and programs without the hassle of creating it themselves; It’s a way of saving time and effort.