The secret to getting rich in 2012: Open APIs
20.05.12
Redmonk analyst Stephen O'Grady hints at this in a recent post that discusses ways to unleash the "age of data", by describing legal handicaps placed on Redmonk's efforts to get at analytics data through an open API. Cut off the API through whatever means, and you've cut off a developer's ability to not only grow her service, but also yours.
Given the importance of APIs, it's surprising just how hard it can be to release them. Dan Woods calls this out, reporting on research he and others had done on APIs: "API programs [are often] started in secret, nurtured by the true believers in a clandestine way, slipped into production, and then brought to the awareness of senior management after the API was shown to be a success." Developers, in other words, are having to secretly succeed for their business.
This is silly, if for no other reason than one of the great benefits of APIs is how much they can help with the integration of internal software services. That is, software
Source: Register