March 8th, 2006
Yahoo ups the ante with APIs
Yahoo has announced four new APIs for its Developer Network: Photos, Calendar, MyWeb and Shopping. The Shopping 2.0 API is available now, while the Photos, Calendar and MyWeb read/write APIs will be available soon [updated - thanks Jeffrey]. While they’ll be free to use for non commercial purposes, Ash Patel (Yahoo chief product officer) tells us there are commercial offerings coming soon.
I remember speaking with ex-YPN chief Toni Schneider about this last year and I was impressed by his vision for a commercial platform for APIs. I’m expecting Yahoo to really the ante with Google and Microsoft in terms of mashup ecosystems. Don’t count out AOL and eBay either.
The Shopping Paid Syndication Program is an indicator of things to come, I think. It’s a beta service that "enables websites to integrate with Yahoo! Shopping and share in the revenue generated when qualified traffic is sent to our advertising partners." Sounds very similar to Amazon’s affiliate program, only the traffic is distributed to Yahoo’s advertising partners instead of to an online store.
In related news Yahoo’s Ian Kennedy reports that they’ve opened up an Application Gallery. Ian wrote:
"Similar to the Widgets Gallery, this site shows off the best applications built on top of the Yahoo APIs. There’s the opportunity to upload and submit your applications to the gallery and, once they are there, have them reviewed and showcased."
Speaking of APIs, David Berlind of MashUp Camp and ZDNet fame has started a Standards for API Documentation effort. This is the kind of thing that will really push mashup ecosystems along, if all the big (and little) companies support open API documentation standards.
Mashup mechanisms and platform plays are becoming more organized in 2006 - and Yahoo is at the forefront. Let’s hope open standards play a big part going forward.
