So facebook have released an API earlier this week. I just can’t see the revenue upside for them. This is a neat segway into the flipside of my earlier post saying natural search APIs are poorly supported due to the lack of revenue upside.
For me the power of a lot of sites is in the platform they offer and the fact that this platform is their revenue base. APIs that enable use of a platform to make the API owner more money are the best supported tools out there.
I am writing this post through the typepad api using the great windows live blogging tool and Typepad simply don’t care since I pay them for using their platform. Offering out their API is helping to keep me a loyal customer.
eBay’s API is awesome. Without the eBay API such companies as channeladvisor and marketworks probably wouldn’t exist. The beauty of this API is simple, eBay makes money wherever and however users buy and list so long as they use the eBay platform.
I am a passionate fan of forward thinking corporations who use APIs to their advantage. In summary if you want to make money from an API make sure it’s users interacting with the platform that’s valuable for you and not visitors to your website.