Talk at the Business of APIs on Developer needs in APIs

1. Making an API Developers
Love
By Frank Denbow
@frankdenbow

2. Who I Am
Developer, Carnegie
Mellon
Picsicle iOS App
StartupThreads
Startup Weekend,
Startup Digest
15+ hackathons

3. Why An API Matters
Developer community can bring
Creativity
New Markets
Evangelists

4. Netflix: 20 Billion API calls/month
http://techblog.netflix.com/2011/02/redesigning-
netflix-api.html

5. Twitter: 75% of calls in API
Developer community vital to the reach
http://blog.programmableweb.com/2010/04/15/

6. High Level Topics
Solve Developer Pain
Incentives
Commitment
Reliability

7. Solve Developer Pain
Helping developers build things faster, better

9. Example: CelebrityTwin.me
Face.com: Facial recognition API, used in
CelebrityTwin.me

10. Example: CelebrityTwin.me
Face.com: Facial recognition API, used in
CelebrityTwin.me

11. 66% Facial Similarity
Example: CelebrityTwin.me
Face.com: Facial recognition API, used in
CelebrityTwin.me

12. Incentives
Are your business goals in line with the
developer’s?

13. Commitment
Is your API a high priority? Can I count on you to
maintain and support the API as needed?

14. Reliable
Can I count on your API to be available at all
times?

15. Granular Topics of Interest
Simplicity
Standards (JSON,
REST)
Documentation
Support

16. Simple
Easy to understand, predictable resources,
speed to hello world

17. Example: Foursquare
Predictable endpoints, versioning

18. Standards
Use common standards to make adoption easier
and consistent. REST, JSON

19. Documentation
Example Code, API Explorer (Mashery), Multiple
Languages

20. Example: Mashery Explorer

21. Documentation: Stripe
Payments API
Code samples in
multiple languages
Copiable sample code
Supplement with live
chat

22. Example: Stripe
Get started page has copiable code

23. Example: Stripe
Code in multiple languages

24. Support
Be available whenever you are needed

25. Support Example: Twilio
SMS and Telephony
API
Weekend Support
Fulltime Evangelists

26. Thanks!
@frankdenbow