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BizDev 2.0 aka Marketing via API

Posted on 10. Oct, 2009 by Antonella Stellacci in Trends

What do Twitter, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, EBay, Flickr have in common? They all offer APIs that other companies use to build businesses and products on top of them.

API technology and its standards have been around for a while. But only recently, companies have started to use them as a commercial enabler that creates new business opportunities. Caterina Hack, the mastermind behind Flickr, called this BizDev 2.0, back in 2006!

What are the advantages of using APIs as an integral part of your marketing plan?

• Market Reach- An API lets your company tap into markets and geographies you would not otherwise be able to get into. It’s like having a sales force on steroids.
• Contextual Marketing -Instead of interrupting your customers with old style generic ads, API allow you to communicate with customers at the right time, and when their attention and intent of purchase is stronger. The leads that are generated are therefore higher in quality, accounting for a better ROI.
• Distribution- APIs are an additional distribution channel. They allow you to not only reach, but also promote and sell the company’s content or functionality to other websites.
• Innovation! – As Twitter proved to the world, mash-ups can unlock tidal waves of innovation.

But what are APIs and what are the basic steps to get APIs for your website? About a year ago I had the luck to work with Alessandro Pistilli, on a project to launch APIs for our former employer. I asked him a few questions.

Alessandro, Can you define APIs in human terms?
API stands for Application programming interface. This is a very geeky term that doesn’t tell us much. I’ll try from another angle. I’ll tell you what you can do with an API:

• You can sell Amazon books on your blog
• You can play a Youtube video on your Facebook profile
• You can carry a widget with your Twitter feed.
• You can see the map of your favorite restaurant on Zagat or NYmag

To summarize…with an API you can grab contents and functionalities from a website and use as you like. And, if you have content to share and offer, you can package it as an API and let other people use it!

What are the basic steps to get your website API-ready?

First you need content: articles, music, pictures, anything. Second you need to make it accessible (that’s the main API function). The easiest way is using the Rest protocol. Third make it usable with searches, filters and other smart ways to aggregate results.

What are the challenges of creating API for your site?
There are a lot of challenges. From a technical side your API must be simple, reliable, solid and standardized. Clear and easy documentation is a big plus. Add many examples and why not, plug and play packages and ready to use code. How do you think Youtube became that famous?

What are your recommendations?
Keep your focus the real value proposition and outsource everything else! There are great services around that will let you accelerate your deployment times (that’s another story). Release quick and often, and make changes where needed. Very important: listen to your developers. They will make your product a success or a failure!

Tags: API