John Musser on how to start an API developer community

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John Musser on how to start an API developer community

​API Economist:  You founded ProgrammableWeb back in 2005, is that correct?

John Musser: That’s correct. It’s coming up on its eighth anniversary this summer. It was really the birth of the open API and web mash movement. The phrase “web mashup” was really coined four or five months before we started ProgrammableWeb. That was the same spring when Housingmaps.com was built, which was essentially the first quintessential mashup (a mashup of Craigslist and Google Maps).

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Byron Sebastian on the future of the API economy

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Byron Sebastian on the future of the API economy

API Economist:  I heard this quote, “Not having an API today is like not having a web site circa mid-90s.” Do you agree or disagree with this and why?

Byron Sebastian: No, I don't agree with it, I think it is a small minded way of thinking about the Internet and our industry.

APIs are a worthy technique used by developers to exchange data and data processing tasks. Right now APIs appear to be a critical part of the information revolution, one of the most important transformations in the history of civilization.

So I wouldn't compare APIs to building websites in the 90s, I'd compare APIs to the wheel, or the library, or mass production. It's both as big as those concepts and, once in your consciousness, as obvious (as "duh") as them.

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