Benefits and Tips for Offering a Third-Party API Program
Partner programs that offer an API (application programming interface) for 3rd party developers can be a great way to:
- Acquire users inexpensively. Ultimately, users of the third party application will learn your brand and make their way back to the mother ship.
- Cheaply increase your development efforts by incenting third party developers to build interesting applications on top of your API or include your API exposed services as a complement to their core application.
- Ultimately, increase your revenue.
When designing your API program, consider the following.
- Start off small, offering a small set of core services. If this proves popular, then selectively increase the API offering.
- If you also offer a client application, you may not want to offer every single feature so that users eventually end up migrating to your own application client. You may also want to disallow competing applications, only allowing your API to be used as a complementary piece of content in third party apps that do not directly compete with your business.
- Set a minimum split amount that a developer’s third party app must produce in business before they get paid commissions. This will save time and money in micro-payments.
- Publish the split, and avoid any negotiation. It takes too much time.
- Standard contract ready to go.
- Good documentation, forum, sandbox development environment, and make sure to budget time for a developer to monitor the forum.
- PR for your API. Development groups and local programming meetup’s make a great spot to spread the word.
- Use simple API technologies, like RESTFull services or simple HTTP XML or JSON services if you can. Avoid complex SOAP services if you can help it because not everyone can do SOAP easily (ahem… Ruby).
So get going on your API program, and get on to the internal arguments of what services to expose!
iPad… The new 10 inch home of the App Store
The brilliance of the iPad is in Apple’s decision to run the iPhone OS on it. The iPhone OS was a great choice for the iPad, as supposed to porting their standard computer operating systems, like Windows has been doing since 2001. The iPhone OS’s amazing multi-touch interface and low power consumption is a natural fit for the iPad. But the real gem here is including the iPhone OS App Store and ensuring that all iPhone and iPod Touch apps work on the iPad.
The App Store combined with the iPad’s form factor and capabilities make it a sort of tablet chameleon. Combine a driving simulator with a 10 inch screen and an accelerometer and you have a killer car racing game. Combine the WiFi, 10 inch touchscreen and word processing software and you have the perfect intake form at a doctor’s office. The iPad wasn’t designed to replace your current laptop or desktop. The iPad was designed to replace the way we do a great many things. Playing games with our families, checking email, reading books, or watching movies on a plane. It’s verbs, not nouns that Apple was after.
I believe that we will see iPad competitors recognize the importance of including an app store in their next devices. Google’s rumored slate device will likely include the Android Market. HP’s recent purchase of Palm will likely result in the Palm WebOS and app store showing up on future HP tablet devices.
Thus, the iPad will be as good or as popular as the software that is created for it. And in that regard, I think it will be quite popular. For myself, the iPad would certainly not replace my laptop nor would my wife give up her MacBook for an iPad. However, in a few years when our kids become school age, I can see the iPad being standard equipment for family vacations and long car trips. How nice to be able to bring streaming TV, all of our favorite board games, and a great way to look at maps all in one device!
About
Thanks for visiting! My name is Keith Forsythe and this is my blog about product development, product marketing, mobile devices and general business practices at an Internet Startup.
I am currently co-founder and Director of Product Development at RideCharge, Inc (Taxi Magic), a startup mobile and web taxi booking service. Prior to RideCharge, I was an IT project manager as CVS/Caremark, and a software engineer at Baxter Healthcare. I have a MS in E-Commerce Technolgy from DePaul University and a BS in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana.
