This document discusses APIs (application programming interfaces). It defines APIs and describes how they allow software components to communicate. It notes that APIs for web development typically involve HTTP requests and JSON/XML responses. The document discusses how APIs allow services to be combined into new applications ("mashups") and how websites providing APIs are becoming platforms for other programs. It also summarizes some critiques of APIs, such as limited access, changing interfaces over time, issues of control and access, and ethics around scraping data versus using APIs.

1. API Introductie
De API-Koning, SETUP Utrecht, 12 April 2012
,
Anne Helmond
www.digitalmethods.net

2. API introduction
An application programming interface (API) is a source
code based specification intended to be used as an
interface by software components to communicate with
each other. An API may include specifications for
routines, data structures,object classes, and variables.
(Wikipedia)

3. API
Application Programming Interface
“this refers to a set of tools that developers can use to
access structured data.” (boyd and Crawford)
“Machine-facing interfaces for your application” p. 331
“software interface to your website” p. 332
“weaving the Guardian into the fabric of the Web” p. 331

4. Web API / web service
When used in the context of web development, an API
is typically a defined set of Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP) request messages, along with a definition of the
structure of response messages, which is usually in an
Extensible Markup Language (XML) or JavaScript Object
Notation (JSON) format. While "Web API" is virtually a
synonym for web service, the recent trend (so-called
Web 2.0) has been moving away from Simple Object
Access Protocol (SOAP) based services towards more
direct Representational State Transfer (REST) style
communications.[5] Web APIs allow the combination of
multiple services into new applications known as
mashups.[6] - (Wikipedia)

5. The web as platform
Historically, some types of software like desktop
operating systems have been called 'platforms' because
through their APIs they provide the foundation on which
other programs are built. The phrase 'web as platform'
refers to fact that as web sites start providing their own
APIs, they too are becoming a platform on which other
programs can be built. (Programmableweb)

6. Programmable web
Definitionally, a “platform” is a system that can be
reprogrammed and therefore customized by outside
developers—users—and in that way, adapted to
countless needs and niches that the platform’s original
developers could not have possibly contemplated, much
less had time to accommodate.
[T]he key term in the definition of platform is
‘programmed’. If you can program it, then it’s a
platform. If you can’t, then it’s not. - Marc Andreessen

7. APIs and Web 2.0
A Platform Beats an Application Every Time - O’Reilly 2005

8. Flickr: blog this photo

9. cross-platform realtime photo search

10. APIs and mashups

11. IFTT: combining cloud services

12. IFTT: combining cloud services

13. IFTT: combining cloud services

14. IFTT: combining cloud services

15. IFTT: combining cloud services

16. IFTT: combining cloud services

17. IFTT: combining cloud services

18. IFTT: combining cloud services
an interface for programming the application
programming interface

19. API calls

20. request your own data (limited)
through API calls

21. archiving your own data

22. archiving your own data

23. analyzing your own data

24. API literature

25. API literature
In relation to user interface/programming interface:
Cramer and Fuller 2008
In relation to the volatility of methods: Helmond and
Sandvig 2010
In relation to proprietary API calls: Berry 2011
In relation to Big Data: boyd and Crawford 2011
In relation to data gathering skills: Manovich 2011
In relation to scraping: Marres and Weltevrede 2012

26. API critiques
http://blogs.igalia.com/vjaquez/2011/05/26/software-architects-and-api-designers/

27. #1 limited API calls
There are limits to how many calls and changes you can
make in a day
API usage is rate limited with additional fair use limits
to protect Twitter from abuse.
https://dev.twitter.com/docs/things-every-developer-should-know

28. #1 limited API calls

29. #2 changing APIs

30. #2 changing APIs

31. #2 changing APIs

32. #2 changing APIs

33. #2 changing APIs
“This document and the APIs herein are subject to
change at any time. We will version the API, but may
deprecate early versions aggressively.” - Love, Delicious.
http://delicious.com/help/api

34. #3 APIs and control
http://www.socialsignal.com/system/files/2007-07-30-api.gif

35. #4 APIs and access
“Register for a free API key and get 133% more
queries/day.” Topsy

36. #4 APIs and access
Twitter Inc. makes a fraction of its material available to
the public through its APIs. The ‘firehose’ theoretically
contains all public tweets ever posted and explicitly
excludes any tweet that a user chose to make private or
‘protected.’ Yet, some publicly accessible tweets are
also missing from the firehose. Although a handful of
companies and startups have access to the firehose,
very few researchers have this level of access. (boyd
and Crawford 2011)

37. # 5 ethics: APIs “versus” scraping
There are different data gathering methods: The API is
the polite way of gathering data and scraping could be
considered the impolite way of harnessing data: “You
can arrange digital research methods on a spectrum of
niceness. On the one hand you use the industry-
provided API. On the other you scrape Facebook for all
it is worth.”(Helmond & Sandvig 2010)
Scrapers stand in complex relations to API’s -
compared against the industry provided (limited) APIs,
scrapers may be viewed as the less polite variant of
data collection and in some cases may works against
copyright, terms of service, and “trespass to chattels”.
(Marres & Weltevrede 2012)

38. kthxbai!
anne@digitalmethods.net
www.digitalmethods.net

39. • http://thinkupapp.com/
sources
• http://ifttt.com
• http://www.programmableweb.com/faq
• http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/digital-strategies/165347/8-apis-your-news-organization-should-start-using-
today/
• Bell, G (2009). Building Social Web Applications. Sebastopol: O’Reilly Media.
• Berry, D. (2011). The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
• Bogost, I. and Montfort, N. (2009). Platform Studies: Frequently Questioned Answers. Proceedings of the
Digital Arts and Culture Conference, 2009.
• boyd, d. and Crawford, K. (2011) Six Provocations for Big Data. A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the
Dynamics of the Internet and Society, September 2011. Available at SSRN
• Cramer, F and Fuller, M. (2008) Interface. in: Fuller, M. (ed). Software Studies: A Lexicon,Cambridge: MIT Press.
.
• Helmond, A and Sandvig, C. (2010). ‘On the Evolution of Methods.’ Workshop “Research Methods in the
Digitally Networked Information Age” organized by The Berkman Centerfor Internet & Society and the University
of St. Gallen in Brunnen, Switzerland from 10 to 12 May 2010.
• Langlois, G., McKelvey, F Elmer, G & Werbin, K. (2009). Mapping Commercial Web 2.0 Worlds: Towards a New
.,
Critical Ontogenesis. Fibreculture 14.
• Manovich, L. (2011) ’Trending: The Promises and the Challenges of Big Social Data.’ Debates in the Digital
Humanities, edited by Matthew K. Gold. The University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming 2012. PDF available at
http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2011/04/new-article-by-lev-manovich-trending.html
• O’Reilly (2005). ‘What is Web 2.0.’