Kristof van Tomme discusses the importance of APIs and the need for user-friendly GUIs to make them more accessible to a wider audience. He emphasizes the potential of 'clickatons'—events aimed at engaging non-developers to create interest and innovation in API usage. He advocates for developing open-source plugins within existing ecosystems like Drupal to enhance user experience and maintain control over development.

1. Hackton -> Clickaton
Why the API web needs a GUI

2. Pronovix
Kristof Van Tomme
CEO - evangelist
Ghent area, Belgium
@kvantomme
kristof@pronovix.com
Developer Portals

3. APIs are amazing

4. They are the epitome of division of labor

5. APIs are the driving force that will enable specialised AI

6. This is going to lead us to fantastic places

7. There is just one little problem...

8. in 2020 we will have 25M developers that is 0.31% of 8B

9. There are not enough developers to make APIs go mainstream

10. Who else could implement our APIs?

11. Let me tell you a little secret...

12. I am not a developer!

13. I’m a bio-engineer...

14. My first startup investigated diagnostics for schizophrenia

15. But today I run a Drupal consultancy

16. How did that ever happen?

17. I got sucked into Drupal because of it’s GUI...

18. GUIs are gateway drugs for IT products

19. But this is an old trick that MS Windows showed us long ago

20. And smart people are already working on this

21. But is that enough?

22. When you are removed from the user experience

23. You risk losing control

24. You should consider having an open source GUI

25. Not a stand-alone project

26. But a plugin for an existing ecosystem

27. Like Drupal for example

28. We did this for Context.io’s API and won first runner up

29. Maybe your API already has an integration

30. That just needs a little maintance love

31. But what is a Clickaton?

32. A Clickaton is a hackaton for Clickers

33. You should do one, because clickers are the mainstream market

34. and Clickers need our help

35. Because right now they probably feel like imposters

36. If embraced, they will do crazy things for your community

37. Pronovix
Kristof Van Tomme
CEO - evangelist
Ghent area, Belgium
@kvantomme
kristof@pronovix.com
Developer Portals

38. Attribution
https://pixabay.com/en/cat-kitten-cute-pet-feline-kitty-393294/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hacker_-_Hacking_-_Symbol.jpg
https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkas:Wain_cats_6.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_sheep#/media/File:Black_sheep-1.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windows_3.0_workspace.png
http://www.evansdata.com/reports/viewRelease.php?reportID=9
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Winged_unicorns_in_Thailand_1.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations#/media/File:The_Wealth_of_the_Nation,_Seymour_Fogel.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence_in_fiction#/media/File:HAL9000.svg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_takeover#/media/File:Cylon_Centurion_head.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Opensource.gif
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_okada_house05_800.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_White_Bengal_Tiger_in_cage_at_Cougar_Mountain_Zoological_Park.jpg
https://pixabay.com/en/energy-hand-current-keep-plug-259725/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FEMA_-_29967_-_Hurricane_season_training_in_Louisiana.jpg

39. Drupal alone has over a 100k contributing users!

40. With an existing evangelist infrastructure