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April 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Who really owns a free API (Nat Torkington)
Nat has a fantastic post on the value of free APIs...to those who consume but don't create them. I don't want to give them away, but here's a teaser and one of my favorites:
Amazon and Google have recently shattered a common misconception: that free APIs are a commons of goodies to be built on top of for fun and profit, like open source software. If you think that, then here are six things you need to know about free APIs:...Great insight, Nat.4. The provider of your API will find it easier to implement services on top of their API than you will. Therefore you have to add something of your own that's difficult to replicate, something beyond a simple UI tweak or a feature like "search", so that the business that provides the API doesn't simply compete with you when you look like you're succeeding.
Posted by Matt Asay on April 27, 2007 01:02 PM
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