The World Runs on APIs

As you’re browsing through Instagram or scheduling an appointment in your favorite calendar application, data is being exchanged behind the scenes. Applications make this data available to the public in various formats for easy interactions. The process of exposing this data is called making an API. Short for Application Protocol Interface. Whether you’re a technical person or not, applications that you use will need to exchange information.

Were you reading a review of a restaurant on Yelp? Well I’m sure you want to see where it’s located. Yelp will show you a map of where the restaurant is. The Google Maps API makes that possible so Yelp doesn’t have to create a digital map of the world from scratch. Very helpful. Plus you didn’t have to leave Yelp to go to Google Maps. Another bonus. Google Maps API is one of the most popular APIs out there for application developers. In the payments world a gateway would have a Transaction API that allows shopping carts, point-of-sales, and ERPs, to easily send payments and store transaction history details for robust back-office management.

APIs are made by developers of hardware and software applications. Software developers purposely expose certain functions of their code for others to take advantage. The wonderful thing about APIs is that the creators control how much functionality is exposed. From a perspective of developers using the API, running into licensing or IP issues is eliminated. What the API provides is decided and limited by the creators.

APIs often come in the format of a library that includes documentation for routines, data structures, object classes, and variables. In other cases, like SOAP and REST services, an API is simply a document of remote calls exposed to the API consumers.

When you’re browsing the internet for a product you’d like to purchase you might notice some sites carry the same products, images, and reviews as Amazon. That’s Amazon’s Product Advertising API at work. The Product Advertising API opens the doors to Amazon’s databases so that you can take advantage of Amazon’s sophisticated data and functionality. For example this API allows you to build your own web store to sell Amazon items or your own items. Similarly in the financial technology world a payment facilitator might have a Reseller API. Independent Sales Organizations or ISOs can take advantage of a Reseller API by having a software on their end that automatically sets up merchants with payment processing without manually having to do it. The same software can pull reports and show analytics without having to tally up the amounts in a ledger. You can see as a business grows scaling this data is impossible without the help of APIs.

The world is starting to incorporate more data into daily processes. As every system becomes a combination of software and hardware the data these systems produce needs to be organized and presented in a digestible way. It is certainly true that software is eating the world. Transportation is being disrupted by Uber, travel and hospitality are being usurped by AirBnB, and finance is shifting to digital while leaving cash behind. The world is becoming quantifiable.

As you’re reading about the latest news in the world on your preferred news digest site or app you might notice some embedded tweets from the people being discussed. The Twitter API is a perfect example of an application that has data you need. You can’t possible follow everyone on Twitter or keep up with everyone’s feed, and you don’t have to. Twitter’s API allows other applications to display the data relevant to them and ultimately to you.

With the current shift to EMV transactions gateways have implemented Middleware APIs to let software vendors access terminal certifications and PCI compliance without having to do the certification themselves. This leverage is huge in terms of cost savings and employee resources. Middleware APIs give ISVs the power of gateways packaged in a one time integration. The world needs data protocols like APIs to bring us into the efficient, frictionless and unified experience we want. In other words, the world runs on APIs.