anthony galvin

Recently I was asked to take a look at an API as part of an advertising awards entry that we were making. As with most awards entries the assessment I was making wasn’t just about the functional elements such as the available methods, approach to content negotiation and compliance with open standards, but also the way the API was presented. Was there good documentation and tools as well as an active an easy to engage developer community.

All those elements were there, but there was something else less tangible and probably more important that I was really looking for. What did the API really say about the brand? This assessment is more subtle, but gets to the heart of how and why an organisation is choosing to expose services to third-parties.

- How does the sign-up process work
- Can I have a limited number of API calls without having to sign-up, so that I can test if this is for me 
- Which programming languages are the code examples available in (the choice of languages can say a huge amount about the brand)
- How often is the API updated, is this a live project
- Is there an easy way to submit bugs or feature requests
- Which developer tools are being used to share code and examples (can I do a pull request on GitHub?)

The most important area to understand is the value that the API is offering to developers and third-parties, and by extension what is the expected return value the business can hope to receive.

Empowering developers though your API is a form of co-development with people you might not know so well. Choosing the playing field (the services) carefully is an important way of shaping the development direction.

There’s clearly an assumption within some organisations that “having an API” (public or private) is enough, but just showing up is no longer a winning strategy. The way companies engage the developer community is a pure expression of branding through doing (show, don’t tell). If done in the right way it empowers others to realise your brand expression through their own art, copy and code. Which seems like something that is worth investing in.