APIs are changing the face of new business ideas and while it’s not exactly a new idea in itself (well a few years old anyway) the number of businesses making APIs availbale – and the number of businesses being founded on clever uses of APIs – is growing.
In very rough and non-technical terms, an API (application programming interface) is essentially an interface that allows outside developers to plug their applications into the other websites – making use of their services or content.
For businesses offering APIs it’s a great way to develop a community of applications around it’s core product or service – extending usability and making their core product or service ‘stickier’. For developers it’s a great way to tap into the functionality, content and marketplace of a more established business.
In recent weeks we’ve featured several business ideas that make use of APIs. AreYouSafe makes use of both local government data and iPhone functionality to let you know how safe a neighborhood is. vzaar uses the eBay API to allow seamless integration of video in eBay listings.
Here are three more good examples:
Three Examples of API Based Businesses
Suburbified.com uses the newly released New York Times API to combine their back catalog of ‘Living In’ articles about the New York suburbs with a map. It’s a simple idea that could easily be extended to include articles and information from other sources – and then monetized through local advertising or sales of services to real estate agents.
Twecipe is a Twitter app (@twecipe) that went from bright idea to functioning service in just 5 days. Irish entrepreneur Niall Harbison teamed up with some savvy developers to create a tool that allows you to Tweet a list of ingredients (or enter them on the site) and get back a recipe that makes use of those ingredients. You can read the story of it’s development here.
AlertThingy allows you to bring all of the ‘online you’ into one place by tapping into everything from Facebook to Flickr and Twitter to Digg. You get one desktop app that displays all the latest updates from all your social media accounts.
What other cool API based businesses do you know of? Are you involved with one or developing one now? Add your comments below.
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