Why publishers can’t bargain with Facebook and Google

It’s remarkable to me that more organisations don’t take advantage of perhaps the most powerful feature of the internet.

Open APIs provide a way to let other people use your technology via their websites. It can be like throwing open a window to your own servers. The more windows left ajar, the more people have access to whatever it is you offer.

If you’ve ever logged into a website or an app using your Facebook ID, then you’ve opened a window to Facebook code and connected to Facebook servers through that site or app. You have probably added third party ad codes on your web site. That’s a form of API, too.

Amazon is one of the most ambitious providers of APIs out there. With more than a million customers, including many website hosting companies, using Amazon web services it’s very likely that you spend a large percent of your digital day connected to an Amazon server – and you probably never know it.

APIs seemed to take a back seat when the mobile revolution went into overdrive, but announcements from Facebook, Google and Uber recently suggest the pendulum has swung back.

Read the full article here

Source: Guardian Media

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