"API T&Cs will often be tightly linked to the terms already set for the web versions of a service where they exist since the API will likely allow access to much of the same functionality. We commonly see companies binding API users to both the service T&Cs as well as API specific terms."

"Stop talking about your products and services as objects and items, and talk more about who and how those products and services are used to do amazing things. Build a culture of accomplishment around your offerings, rather than a culture of availability." from: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/book-reviews/the-power-of-consumer-choice-drives-social-media-importance/

I’m exploring the Mashape API Platform, trying to break things down and understand everything in more detail. Blogging about a topic does this for me.

So let’s start with deploying an API with Mashape.

With the Mashape PHP Library you can deploy an API on your infrastructure. You download the library from Github, deploy on your server, and then add the methods for your API by extending the Mashape PHP component class.

If you already have an API that returns JSON responses, you can just register it as a Mashape API for distribution, without deploying the Mashape PHP Library.

If you’ve deployed your API without the Mashape PHP Library you will need to accomplish one more step. You will need to implement the Mashape Connector by adding one line of code to your API, which is required to connect your API to the Mashape Platform and handle user authorization, billing, and rate-llimiting.

Whichever way you deploy your API, you can now distribute it using Mashape. The first step for distributing an API is to create an XML file that describes what the API does. This XML file gets deployed on your server and needs to be updated as your API evolves.

Once your API is deployed and published to Mashape, the platform distributes your API to the Mashape Marketplace and provides a detail page with title, description, documentation, test console and PHP, Python, Ruby, Java and Objective C client libraries.

Mashape then provides a way for developers to sign-up and start hacking on any API in the Mashape Marketplace with a single developer account and key. There are also social features allowing users to follow and contact other users.

All APIs that are published using Mashape will connect and communicate with Mashape through an API Proxy. This is the proxy that handles the authorization of users, implementation of billing, rate limiting and other functions described above.

Right now the proxy is primarily available via the Mashape platform, but you can also find an open-source version of the Mashape API proxy on Github. The API Proxy is intended to be downloaded and installed on your servers, which will increase the performance and security of your API.

In addition to being able to register your API and use the Mashape API Proxy in the cloud, you can download and install on-premise. Since it is open-source, you could also fork the code and potentially add in your own modifications to the API proxy, which is written in JavaScript and runs on the latest version of node.js

I’m playing around with deploying one small and one large data-set as two separate APIs using the Mashape PHP Library, so I can get more familiar with how the platform works. I just wanted to work through some thoughts about what they provide here on the blog. More to come on Mashape…

"Obviously free plans have worked well for companies like Wufoo, MailChimp, and FreshBooks, so we know they can work. But the problem is that we’re not them. We need to stop blindly copying them and start thinking about ways to bring in revenue. I’ll concede that there are certain types of apps that are more likely to succeed by offering a free plan and going with the Freemium model. But the vast majority of apps aren’t in this category, and the vast majority of people don’t have the resources to make that model work. Taking advantage of word-of-mouth marketing requires more users than most of us will attain. Instead, we end up with a large number of free users zapping away valuable resources for nothing in return. To top it off, most free users will never end up converting to a paid plan."

A badge awarding service for web apps.

Matt Jones's latest, "talk I gave at Frontiers of Interaction V in Rome yesterday, primarily about the territory of “the Internet of Things” moving from one of academic and technological investigation to one of commercial design practice, and what that might mean for designers working therein."

"Then, go the any Amazon product page, and click “Link to this Page” in the Amazon Affiliates Toolbar on the top of the page (note: you must be signed into Amazon and have an affiliates account for this toolbar to appear). Once you are on the link builder page, click the “bitlyAmazonAffiliateLink” bookmarklet in your toolbar, and you will be redirected to bit.ly with a short, trackable link waiting for you."

"Matches you with rated delivery firms "going there anyway""

Neat trick for Pipes (or whatever): "This web application provide API to analyze ID3v2 tag in MP3 on the web. This API returns title/artist/album/genre via json/html format. Analyzed data can search with Google Base."

free service designed to assist the general public in determining which callers are annoying telemarketers. Our goal is to develop a complete database of all the phone solicitors out there, so you can stop receiving calls trying to sell you products and services.

"the essential distinction between context-aware applications and location-based services (LBS): Everyone gets LBS, more or less: it’s the ground on which Interaction Design Cliché No. 2 is built. You’re in a particular place, and there are things your device can do in this place that it’s not capable of elsewhere." "what I, at least, mean when I use the words “context aware”: but for some residual core of basic functionality, the device’s capabilities and available interface modalities at any given moment are largely if not entirely determined by the other networked objects around it. If you pair the device with a text, it’s a reader; at the checkstand, it provides a friendly POS interface; aimed at the skyline, it augments reality. "

The Web has a particular architecture and it makes sense that if you are deploying a service or API on the Web then it should take advantage of this architecture instead of fighting against it. There are millions of deployed clients, servers and intermediaries that support REST and it makes sense to be compatible with their expectations. This doesn't mean you have to use DELETE and PUT when POST might suffice. It does mean understanding the difference between using POST versus using PUT to other participants in the Web architecture. Specifically, that PUT is idempotent while POST is not so a client of your service can assume that performing the same PUT two or three times in a row has the same effect as doing it once but cannot assume that for POST.

check SPF records (syntax, existence, etc)

provided an open sourced SDK that "emulates all of the App Engine services on your local computer"

Offers hosting, design, and training for Moodle

Work on the same document together, instead of sorting out changes in attachments Share documents and calendars securely with your co-workers with a click Access it all from any computer, and even from mobile phones Invite other team members to join an

The experience stack is a way of thinking about the different levels at which experience design operates. Experience design can be thought of as… * branding; * service design; * product design; * interaction design; * human factors.

riffing on alternate business models

a site-by-site breakdown of what you get — and give up — by consenting to the Terms of Service at some of the major video sites.

helps you to remove your name and personal information from thousands of marketing lists, data brokers and other organizations that send you unsolicited mail.

Nokia is in the position today where maybe the Ford Motor Company was in the 1950s or 1960s. The product has revolutionized society, penetrated the whole market base outside the developing world, and become part of life’s invisible backdrop.

Premium branding capabilities and increased uploading capacity

Compares various services and helps sort through their offerings

Your images, writing, tags, profile, blog entries, comments, testimonials, video, and music should be yours to download and move anyplace you want.

The set of web services APIs allows the movement of money between any two entities, humans or computers. It is built on top of Amazon's reliable and scalable payment infrastructure.

apparently an easy way to download streaming videos from youtube

One fold-able card to replace them all!

Put your mail on hold online.

provides a safer, faster, more reliable and smarter DNS service free to any Internet user.

a way to inform Google Blog Search of weblog updates. These updates are then published and shared with other search engines to allow them to discover the changes to your weblogs

Browse geotagged photos using Google Maps

free online mind mapping (no print or export)

This free service monitors the web pages that interest you and notifies you by email when they change. You might like to monitor the web pages of your work or former work, clients, customers, industry groups, competitors, friends and family, hobby sites,

Full Color Printing Solutions PsPrint delivers custom printing products and services.

Rate comparison for digital photography prints