During undergrad, I worked on a few side projects, with most of them using some sort of social-networking API. It was great learning some new skills and at the same time it was rewarding to tap into the vast networks of established sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Cue to postgrad and I had to complete a research component as part of my course requirements. With a nudge from my supervisor I asked the question: “Is it viable to have a generic social networking API? Will it be useful?”
NodeSummit, a two day conference in San Francisco, will discuss the transformative role Node.js is playing in both the future of computing and today’s deployed systems. It’s coming up on the 24th & 25th of January. As I anticipate this meeting of the minds, I’ve been searching out the experts. Last week I caught up with Jason Hoffman, CTO of Joyent, to talk about Node’s strategy and technical impact. This post explores part of the node adoption strategy.
There is the old hat of publishing giants struggling to find viable business models in the digital world. Then there are countries and legislations that are even trying to turn the very principles of the internet upside down, by making the creation of links an act that one should pay for. On the other end of the spectrum there are newspapers that have public APIs to their content. These newspapers are striving for innovation, by exploring new grounds, instead of sticking to what they know.
According to Mozilla, more than half a billion browser add-ons are in use on Firefox alone. But unlike an app in an App Store, browser add-ons cost nothing to use. So browser add-on developers like us have had to turn to other options to generate revenue for our hard work.
NPR launched our API in July 2008. This API was the technology keystone of our strategy at NPR to solve crossmedia challenges by ensuring content could be ported to any presentation layer (websites, mobile apps etc). While the API has been a huge success, the code architecture behind the API was built on some inaccurate assumptions. NPR has recently finished refactoring the code behind API and we have already seen a significant improvement in performance and are better positioned for future growth of the API.
One of the key rules of having any service online is the ability to measure everything. Metrics like number of users, requests, where the requests originate, most frequently requested data and many more play an important role in not only fine tuning your services but also give a good measure of what it is going to cost you to run your online business as you scale up. SMSMyBus, a mobile telephone application that lets you find real time bus arrivals for the Madison Metro (WI) has just completed a year of existence and has published a report exactly of that.
In this installment of our mashup case study series we speak to Matt Riggott, a developer in Reykjavik, Iceland. He created his music event mashup, Ripped Records, when he lived in Scotland to help him and others discover upcoming concerts. Riggott tells us he believes that showing off this side project to his now-boss “clinched” the job offer and the move to Iceland.
Recently, in our post on the Unofficial Chicago Transit Authority API we reported on this unofficial transit API for the CTA. The API enables developers to build applications that present CTA bus routes, schedules, and arrival predictions. This API is “unofficial” because it is not officially documented by the Chicago Transit Authority, but comes to us by virtue of developer Harper Reed.
Although mashups started out in the consumer space, their success makes a migration into corporate IT environments inevitable. Firms exploring this new software development model may struggle at first to understand the importance of mashups from a corporate perspective. In the upcoming book, Mashup Patterns, author Michael Ogrinz provides a collection of use-case driven patterns intended to explain the value of enterprise mashups to both technical and non-technical readers. We recently interviewed Michael about the patterns and what he hoped to achieve with his book.
In this installment of our mashup case study series we speak with Ed Freyfogle, the founder of Nestoria, a property search engine in the UK and Spain. Their service makes extensive use of the Google Maps API and other sources to include richer information about properties and neighborhoods. They are also an example of an [...]
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