Heyzap’s API announcement is technically yesterday’s news, but there is so much to like here that I figured I would write about it today. First, they announced this on their newly launched developer blog. Etsy has had a developer blog for some time and I think those are a terrific idea. Engineering tends to be a big part of startups and yet often doesn’t have an external voice. A developer blog is a great way to address that and to share accomplishments and techniques with the world. That is ...

Heyzap’s API announcement is technically yesterday’s news, but there is so much to like here that I figured I would write about it today. First, they announced this on their newly launched developer blog. Etsy has had a developer blog for some time and I think those are a terrific idea. Engineering tends to be a big part of startups and yet often doesn’t have an external voice. A developer blog is a great way to address that and to share accomplishments and techniques with the world. That is ...

This afternoon I am participating on a panel for Yahoo! OpenHack NYC titled “Building on Others’ APIs: A Strong Foundation or Recipe for Disaster." That will make a good complement to yesterday’s discussion at the USV portfolio summit where we spoke about the importance of having an API. In preparation for the summit, I asked Oren Michels from Mashery whether he had a good example illustrating the importance of having an API. Oren kindly send along this impressive chart: Now of course this do...

This afternoon I am participating on a panel for Yahoo! OpenHack NYC titled “Building on Others’ APIs: A Strong Foundation or Recipe for Disaster." That will make a good complement to yesterday’s discussion at the USV portfolio summit where we spoke about the importance of having an API. In preparation for the summit, I asked Oren Michels from Mashery whether he had a good example illustrating the importance of having an API. Oren kindly send along this impressive chart: Now of course this do...

STP stands for Straight Through Processing and is a term that comes from the financial services industry. Wikipedia provides a simple definition[STP] enables the entire trade process for capital markets and payment transactions to be conducted electronically without the need for re-keying or manual intervention (…)We need more STP for the web so that we have fewer stove pipe services and can move to a seamless web instead. The obstacle is no longer a lack of APIs – lots of services have APIs ...

STP stands for Straight Through Processing and is a term that comes from the financial services industry. Wikipedia provides a simple definition[STP] enables the entire trade process for capital markets and payment transactions to be conducted electronically without the need for re-keying or manual intervention (…)We need more STP for the web so that we have fewer stove pipe services and can move to a seamless web instead. The obstacle is no longer a lack of APIs – lots of services have APIs ...

Maybe yesterday was a big news day or maybe this has been known for a while and I simply wasn’t aware, but I thought that Google’s announcement yesterday of the Google Friend Connect API was a big deal (and yet seemed to pass virtually unnoticed – was off Techmeme within hours). When Friend Connect was first announced, I was pretty negative about how they had chosen to implement it. I did hedge at the time by saying “at least in its current incarnation” – and now Google has shown that they ar...

Maybe yesterday was a big news day or maybe this has been known for a while and I simply wasn’t aware, but I thought that Google’s announcement yesterday of the Google Friend Connect API was a big deal (and yet seemed to pass virtually unnoticed – was off Techmeme within hours). When Friend Connect was first announced, I was pretty negative about how they had chosen to implement it. I did hedge at the time by saying “at least in its current incarnation” – and now Google has shown that they ar...

The New York Times has an API and developer network. The Guardian just announced the Open Platform. These initiatives are critically important in keeping the NYT and the Guardian relevant. Opening up and giving access to the existing articles and data is a great first step, but the trick will be to turn these into real hubs, which also allow for inbound news and data. The Guardian has taken a big step in this direction with its data store (kudos to the team at AMEE, which is a featured partne...

The New York Times has an API and developer network. The Guardian just announced the Open Platform. These initiatives are critically important in keeping the NYT and the Guardian relevant. Opening up and giving access to the existing articles and data is a great first step, but the trick will be to turn these into real hubs, which also allow for inbound news and data. The Guardian has taken a big step in this direction with its data store (kudos to the team at AMEE, which is a featured partne...

This past weekend was the first annual Ecommerce Hack Day in New York organized by Dwolla and Etsy with support from many other companies. I was delighted to be a judge as there were a lot of talented folks working hard on building interesting ecommerce hacks. Here are some of my takeaways from the weekend. First, there are tons of exciting APIs that people can use to build new ecommerce experiences. Marketplaces such as Etsy and eBay have APISs. So do ecommerce sites such as Amazon and Zappo...

This past weekend was the first annual Ecommerce Hack Day in New York organized by Dwolla and Etsy with support from many other companies. I was delighted to be a judge as there were a lot of talented folks working hard on building interesting ecommerce hacks. Here are some of my takeaways from the weekend. First, there are tons of exciting APIs that people can use to build new ecommerce experiences. Marketplaces such as Etsy and eBay have APISs. So do ecommerce sites such as Amazon and Zappo...

I believe it was Caterina Fake who coined the term “Biz Dev 2.0” to describe a strategy of making APIs available, letting others integrate and then turning the most promising of these into commercial relationships. I have recently seen two potential pitfalls of this approach. First, if you expect to be paid, you might want to consider asking for a credit card early on. Simply having something in your T&Cs that says that charges will apply for commercial usage may not be good enough to be able...

I believe it was Caterina Fake who coined the term “Biz Dev 2.0” to describe a strategy of making APIs available, letting others integrate and then turning the most promising of these into commercial relationships. I have recently seen two potential pitfalls of this approach. First, if you expect to be paid, you might want to consider asking for a credit card early on. Simply having something in your T&Cs that says that charges will apply for commercial usage may not be good enough to be able...