API World 2018

Since joining eBay in 2014, Gail Frederick, VP Developer of Ecosystem and Services, has continually aimed to disrupt commerce with fresh ideas to create a more powerful buying and selling experience on the global marketplace. The revamping of eBay’s API platform has proved essential to this growth. eBay believes in an API-first mentality as it strives to become the world’s most powerful selling platform. Innovative APIs are no longer a “nice-to-have,” but rather an essential part of growing a successful business. In Q1 2017, external developers used eBay’s public sell APIs to drive more than $4.2 B GMV globally.

Of course, all IoThings need APIs – otherwise, they'd just be Things. One of the major benefits of IoT is that the interface and device are separated – you don’t need to build a physical keyboard interface into the device to control the Thing. Now, you can use mobile and Web technology to control and monitor devices so how well you designing and developing your mobile application APIs becomes even more important. Attendees will learn: * The importance of segmenting your architecture * When to build a “generic” interface that considers the broad set of customers that might access the app or device vs a narrowly-focused API that serves a device-specific function * How to integrate segmented APIs into a coherent system * How to implement logging in order to understand the function and performance of segmented architectures * Some of the pitfalls of device-specific APIs and how to avoid them

You’ve designed, tested, documented … and now you have a great API. Now what? In this talk, Abhinav will review his perspective on the best ways to take that great API, get it into the hands of developers, and become part of the API eco-system. Many of these tips start with the API itself: is the design developer-friendly? Is the API documentation useful, accurate, and kept up-to-date? Some are related to ongoing communication and updates: how often is the API updated, and how are changes communicated? Some are marketing-focused - where to be included: lists, marketplaces, exchanges? While focused on promoting a public API, many of the tips in this talk apply to private and internal APIs, which comprise the majority of APIs used today.

Nearly all APIs are designed solely with developers in mind, but are you losing valuable opportunities to connect with your end users? Your product's value isn't in your API; it's defined by how your users consume it. In this talk, Wade Foster will share examples of APIs for the 99%, valuable lessons learned in helping non-coders consume APIs, and why an API-first world is in our future.

Your free API makes it easy for developers to build great apps, and your enterprise API drives revenue and supports complex business requirements. Yet, supporting both a free AND an enterprise API comes with challenges. This is especially true when working to strike a balance that encourages flexibility and innovation for many types of developers and businesses. In this presentation, Twitter’s Adam Tornes and Cassie Stewart will discuss the evolution of the Twitter API platform and the work underway to unify the APIs and optimize for scale, monetization — and ultimately for innovation.

The API economy has grown tremendously over the past decade – from a set of futuristic platform to a set of core technologies at the base of modern applications. This talk will provide an overview + updates on the growth of the API economy and API management spaces, as well as the future of the API platforms.