Posts tagged with 'API'
APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are being rapidly adopted by large companies, public bodies and small tech start-ups with equal amounts of enthusiasm. But that’s not the case for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Tech startups and large companies have clear justifications and well-documented commercial incentives for constructing an API. Something else they share in common is the presence of a strong internal advocate, or API evangelist, who will personally back the API initiative and put dedicated time and energy into implementing their API strategy.
In small and medium companies the justification is less clear. The barriers to adopting API technology appear larger and the business benefits appear smaller.
In many cases the decision maker is the CEO of the SME who may not fully understand the potential opportunities or threats that APIs may mean for their business. This lack of understanding about API technology represents a significant commercial handicap for SMEs.
Here are five API opportunities and threats that every SME should be aware of:
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by William Lovegrove
04 March 2013 09:23am
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The official launch of the Twitter Ads API was inevitable but still important for the marketing ecosystem. One of the world’s biggest human-fed and –curated platforms has taken a step in the right direction – using technology to help make marketers’ lives easier.
Twitter is taking a page out of the playbook of Facebook, which started its journey toward a mature advertising business with its own API in 2009. They built on this success with the launch of Facebook Exchange in 2012. As one of the original FBX partners, we have seen the data and scale available become important to many top brands.
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by Jonathan Gardner
20 February 2013 21:11pm
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As a self-confessed analytics geek, I was very excited when I first took a look at what the Google Analytics API can provide.
The best thing about it from my point of view is that it's about making the data more accessible to people who may not like digging around in figures.
So whether you are an analytics nut or whether you just want a simple way to see the numbers that matter to you, this post will help you understand why you should be considering the Google Analytics API.
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by Anna Lewis
06 December 2012 09:55am
11 comments
Twitter wants to be a media company, and its efforts to become one have created a lot of collateral damage.
That's not at all surprising: when the company was positioned as a communications platform with an open API, developers flocked to take advantage of the connately-flowing river of data that Twitter produces. But many of those developers, as well as companies like LinkedIn, had to be cut off as Twitter's desire to be a media company realistically requires it to control the user experience, and how its content is displayed, in consumer channels.
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by Patricio Robles
05 December 2012 20:12pm
1 comment
When it comes to social networking, Facebook garners most of the attention. And for obvious reasons: Facebook is the largest social network in the world, accounts for the bulk of the spending on social ads, went public earlier this year in a record-breaking IPO and has had a volatile experience as a publicly-traded company.
LinkedIn is, by comparison, far less buzz-worthy. But don't let that fool you: the publicly-traded professional social network is valued at more than $10bn and its shares trade at a mind-boggling 695 times earnings -- a PE ratio five times that of Facebook shares.
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by Patricio Robles
29 November 2012 14:25pm
2 comments
A website isn't the only interface through which companies can interact with their customers and users. Thanks in some part to the success of companies that have used APIs to help build significant business value, a growing number of companies in both the B2C and B2B markets are building and launching their own APIs.
Most APIs, of course, aren't going to achieve Facebook-like success, and companies often make fundamental mistakes when developing an API strategy.
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by Patricio Robles
19 November 2012 15:22pm
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Ask any executive at a popular consumer internet company about mobile, and chances are she will tell you largely the same thing: mobile is absolutely crucial. For many companies, upstarts and established players alike, that means one thing: getting mobile apps right.
But while some of the biggest names in social seem to be moving in the right direction vis-à-vis their mobile apps, one may be moving in the wrong direction.
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by Patricio Robles
20 September 2012 14:27pm
2 comments
With Twitter's changes to its API, announced yesterday, the API as we knew it is effectively dead.
Here's why it's a bad idea...
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by Maximilian Tatton-Brown
17 August 2012 09:54am
5 comments
What do you do when your company surpasses 100m users and begins cementing its status as one of the internet's most popular services?
If you're Twitter, you apparently start adding restrictions to the API that helped you achieve some of your popularity, cutting off functionality offered by other popular services in the process.
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by Patricio Robles
02 July 2012 17:01pm
1 comment
Yes, it seems like a very technical subject best left in the hands of your IT department.
But just as the web and mobile jumped quickly from sideshow to center stage in sales and marketing, how good your APIs are will ultimately have a significant impact on your bottom line – and potentially, the future of your business.
Here’s what you need to know about them.
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by David Chiu
08 June 2012 18:15pm
4 comments
