What is an API and Why You Might Need One

There is a lot of buzz and innovation stemming from the rise of APIs these days so I wanted to dig in deeper to learn more.  The following is a guest post by Steven Willmot, an expert in the API arena and CEO of 3scale – a company that provides API management services.

I asked Steven if he could shed some light on what is an API and why you might need one. Here’s what he had to say…
Today’s web is 95% about web pages of one sort or another – content sites, ecommerce site or web apps which allow you to get things done. Running a great sight or service means getting people to your site and keeping them there (SEO ninjas wanted here!). However, what about this other 5%? It turns out there is another kind of web emerging which is pretty different – one which is driven by [...]

3 Reasons Why Facebook Will Die Soon

It’s just a matter of time before Facebook’s honeymoon is over. Although, it seems that social network juggernaut is indestructible, I don’t think the fairytale will last for too much longer. Here is why it fails:
1. Too much clutter — what turned me on Facebook from the beginning was the simple, clean user interface which Myspace drastically lacked. This has all changed since mid 2007 when they launched the Facebook platform allowing 3rd party apps on the site. Great idea at the time, but now the site has become a cluster f**k of useless widgets that, for the most part, don’t provide much value and are quickly forgotten. This will come back to haunt them.
On the part of Facebook, I think this was a strategic mistake. Instead of throwing up all of these apps in a 3rd party free-for-all (there are currently 22,408 apps), [...]