Offering web-API’s is a standard, and offering a wide-variety is becoming the new standard.
API (Application Programming Interfaces) offer a free service too any user (usually subscription-based) via web.
Examples of web-API’s:
- Google Maps
- UPS shipping
- FedEx shipping
- Flickr
- Yahoo! Traffic – text service
What are the advantages of these API’s? Your service can now be distrubted widely across the net with little effort on your part. Google Maps was developed so loosely that any site could use this service and customize it enough to make it work design-wise in any site (not flash sites though). Their brand “Google Maps” is now pasted on millions of sites without any effort on their part, besides developing this service. example: click here
Google Maps also quickly became the standard for mapping, replacing MapBlast and Mapquest, because their service was so prolific.
If you are interested in developing an API for a service your company could offer, or would like more information on integrating an API into your site, contact Muller Digital directly.