DISQUS

Jon Henshaw · 1 year ago

I like the idea of offering developers and incentive to get involved. That could be in the form of a contest, publicity or whatever.

Chris Saad · 1 year ago

Wow Todd - I got a whole paragraph about me - why would I want to be in the bulleted list? :)

Well done on your API work - loving it.

Todd Sampson · 1 year ago

Hey Chris... Glad you liked it.

As I was reminded in a meeting with some guys at Digg today, it is easy to get cynical about the ability to get data portability working. But it is really important for users and businesses alike. And as such, it is worth the fight.

So again, keep trying to heard the cats. I really hope you can pull it off.

Ben Metcalfe · 1 year ago

Clearly there's a tongue-in-cheek tone to your post, but launching a product with a strong API from the beginning is very important - and I agree with most of the points you raise as being important factors into that.

Personally, something like the Google Social Graph API is not _product_ per se, but a service. Products are used by (normal) people, and the API on its own holds very little value unless it's integrated into something that the end customer can use.

To me, launching an API with your new product not only gives it geek cred and allows new kinds of sideways usage of your product to occur, but also shows you (probably/should have) built the product on top of the API anyway.... and API driven application development is where it is at.

Todd Sampson · 1 year ago

Thanks for the comment Ben. There is a small amount of tongue-in-cheek in the post, but mainly just the last bullet point and following paragraph.

I do feel the API launch is a smart way to start a service or even, in some cases, a full product. I believe that we will see more of these types of releases very soon.

- Todd