WEBVTT - TechStuff Tidbits: The One About APIs 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.239 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:16.239 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.800 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.800 are you? You know, when I was a kid, we 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:28.960 called applications programs, or sometimes we called them software, but 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:32.640 mainly we called them programs. Heck, it's what the digital 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:35.800 characters in the film Tron referred to one another, as 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:39.800 they would say, greetings, program. But then again, when I 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:42.800 was a kid, hardly anyone even had a computer. If 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:45.720 you did have a computer, you know, it was its 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:49.519 own device. It was air gapped because there was no 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.200 such thing as a public internet yet. I mean maybe 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.240 if you were working with you know, arpinnet or something, 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:57.200 you had a system that was connected, but most of 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:00.440 us didn't. Also, when I was a kid, the movie 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:03.040 ticket was four bucks and Disney World was just the 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:05.600 Magic Kingdom. Also had to walk to school and it 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.280 was uphill both ways, and you know, you get the drift. 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:12.479 But then things change, right, For instance, Disney went ahead 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.200 and built three other theme parks at Disney World, and 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:18.560 movie tickets got way more expensive, and we also started 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:23.760 calling programs applications and something else would emerge that would 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:30.080 change programming, the rise of the Application programming interface or API. 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:34.280 So we're doing a tech stuff tidbits about what APIs 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:36.320 are and where they come from. Now. To be clear, 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:42.520 the actual concept of the API is quite old. It 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.920 comes from way before my time. So arguably you could 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.200 say the earliest work that would evolve into what we 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:52.000 would later be called an API actually started back in 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:56.320 the nineteen forties. But the reason is because you had 0:01:56.320 --> 0:02:00.000 all these different teams around the world making computer systems. 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.960 These systems were kind of you know, they were independent, 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:09.120 they weren't interoperable, they weren't compatible. So there were people 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.520 who saw the need to create tools that would allow 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:17.639 for at least some interoperability. Otherwise you're really limiting innovation, 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:21.160 right If you've got a brilliant programmer, a brilliant developer 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:23.640 who has come up with this great idea for a 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:28.240 computer program, but they're only familiar with one computer system, 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.960 you've really limited the utility of that program, at least 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.760 until someone who is familiar with a different computer system 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:38.920 can come along and then perhaps port that program to 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:42.960 other systems. So there was the recognition of a need 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:46.520 to create sort of a common ground that could work 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:53.160 across different computer systems. The actual term for API, at 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:55.640 least a version of this term, because back then it 0:02:55.680 --> 0:03:00.960 was called application program interface rather than programming, shows up 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:04.400 in a paper that was titled Data Structures and Techniques 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:08.520 for Remote Computer Graphics. It was written by Ira W. 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:13.639 Cotton and Frank S. Great Rex, which might be the 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:18.760 best surname I've ever seen great Res Anyway, the paper 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:23.520 describes the technology needed to allow for a quote, providing 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:29.640 a remotely accessed interactive computer graphics system end quote. So 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:33.360 not an API as we would understand it today, at 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:35.560 least not the kind of API we typically talk about 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.280 when you see something about APIs in the tech news 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:42.640 these days. The authors were seeking to create a sort 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.200 of common ground that programmers could depend upon so they 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:49.840 wouldn't have to worry about the underlying hardware, because, like 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:53.200 I said, the underlying hardware was often unique to a 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:57.800 specific system. Sometimes even the same computer company might make 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:01.680 different models that are in aherently incompatible with one another, 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.760 which means you would have to relearn everything in order 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.120 to develop for the new platform. So yeah, an application 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:10.720 programming interface was kind of an approach to sort of 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:15.080 create almost like a universal translator just for computer systems, 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.919 not for people, but for computer systems, so that programmers 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:22.480 wouldn't have to specialize in something and potentially end up 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:26.160 becoming obsolete themselves. Right if you were a programmer and 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:30.200 you tied yourself down to a specific type of computer, 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.640 and let's say that that computer company goes out of business, 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.200 you would have all this knowledge and expertise that was 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.839 sunk into something that no longer was relevant. That would 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.640 be disastrous on your part. You would have to start 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:48.040 all over again. So APIs could help create a method 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:53.680 for creating bridging material between computer systems. In nineteen seventy four, 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:58.039 which is still technically before my time, only by a 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:02.719 little bit, a paper by CJ. Date titled the Relational 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:07.960 and Network Approaches Comparison of the Application Programming Interface would 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:11.160 not only add ing to programs, and now we got 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:16.240 application program Ming interface. This paper also expanded the concept 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:21.320 of an API, in this case involving databases. So not 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.760 just computer systems. Now now we're talking about databases and 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.640 ways to be able to create a bridging material so 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.400 that you could access different databases through the same application. 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.920 This led to the American National Standards Institute as well 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:40.640 as the Standards Planning and Requirements Committee to define and 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:46.000 adopt API for database management systems. What happened next was 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.719 that programmers and computer scientists began to develop APIs for 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.760 all sorts of computational tasks. We had seen it for 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.440 database management, and we would see it for other stuff too. 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:00.839 These APIs would support different programming languages, so that programmers 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.600 could make use of the API without worrying about which 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:05.960 programming language they needed to use when they were creating 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:10.159 the program because not all programmers are fluent in every 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:14.599 programming language, they typically specialize in a couple. In turn, 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:19.120 the API would become, as Carl Malamud put it, a 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:22.800 way to make quote a set of services available to 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:27.559 a programmer for performing certain tasks end quote. Which seems 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.640 vague in general, but that was on purpose, right. It 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:35.880 wasn't meant to pigeonhole API for specific uses, but rather 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:41.080 making it an umbrella term for a way of allowing 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:45.919 developers to access a set of services that were well 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.200 suited for performing certain tasks. It was all about kind 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:51.680 of removing some of the challenges to programming right That 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.240 whole thing about let's not reinvent the wheel. That's kind 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:59.839 of what API was all about, was creating these sort 0:06:59.880 --> 0:07:04.800 of standardized approaches so that programmers could really focus on 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:09.840 making better programs with a shorter development process that and 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:14.240 not have to worry about reinvention all the time. Now, 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.040 I would argue that the types of APIs that we 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:23.400 typically talk about today really originate from a dissertation that 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:25.960 was made by a guy named Roy Fielding while he 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:31.160 was pursuing his PhD. He called his dissertation Architectural Styles 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.440 and the Design of Network Based Software Architectures. Now that 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.560 title doesn't scream API, right. If I just saw that 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:44.560 title listed on a citation list, I wouldn't immediately think, oh, 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.920 that that's a paper about APIs. But it is actually, 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.800 and Fielding also presented ideas about how APIs work in 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.960 the age of the Internet. So he wrote this dissertation 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.080 in two thousand. At that time, there was an emerging 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:03.480 technology that would shape the Web and later the mobile Internet, 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:07.520 and that was the Web API or the web AP 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:09.760 as I would prefer to call it, But then no 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:11.360 one would know what I was talking about, so I 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.080 won't do that again. But in two thousand, and that 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:17.600 same year, Salesforce would release what a lot of folks 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:22.080 would point to as the first modern API. In fact, 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:24.800 we even have a precise date for this, which is 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:29.080 unusual when I'm talking about the history of stuff. Often 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.920 you can't nail it down to even a specific year. 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:34.880 But in this case, we have a specific date February seventh, 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:41.240 two thousand. That's because Salesforce actually unveiled this API during 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:46.600 the IDG Demo two thousand conference. The Salesforce API allowed 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:50.800 its customers and Salesforce's customers or other companies. Right, Like, 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:54.760 you typically have small businesses that are customers of Salesforce 0:08:54.960 --> 0:09:03.079 and they are essentially offloading certain business needs to Salesforce. Well, 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:07.360 in this case, the API would allow these businesses to 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.280 create an ecosystem in which the businesses could share data 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.559 across their different applications. So you know, a business can 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:16.880 be really really complicated, right. You can have all these 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.160 different departments. You can have each department having its own 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:26.040 systems you dedicated for that department, which is cool, but 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:28.240 it also means that you have the danger of each 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.920 department becoming a silo so that you can't easily share 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:36.360 information from department to department, and that can really end 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:40.920 up inhibiting innovation and advancements, and it can be a 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.680 big hit on efficiency. So what Salesforce was doing was 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.040 releasing this API where its customers could make use of 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:53.560 this and be able to share across different applications all 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:58.840 the same information and make better tools. That would allow 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:04.000 for these businesses to operate more efficiently and effectively, and 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:08.120 that would be a better end experience for the user, 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:13.400 and that philosophy would become sort of an underlying element, 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:18.360 a foundational element for APIs moving forward. We're going to 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:20.840 take a quick break. When we come back, i'll explain 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:24.680 a bit more about how this would develop over the 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:38.199 following years. Okay, we're back, So not too long after 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:42.559 Salesforce launched its API, like you know, half a year later, 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.439 a little more than half a year, eBay would follow suit. 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:50.320 It launched its API in November of two thousand. This 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:54.200 would let licensed eBay partners access a framework that would 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:58.439 allow the developers to incorporate eBay services into other websites, 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.440 and technically it would also allow for applications as well. 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.640 So now like if you were a licensed eBay partner, 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:10.080 you could incorporate some of ebase functionality into your own website. 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:14.600 This was a pretty limited version of the API in 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.360 the sense that you had to be a licensed partner first, 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.120 and that was not the easiest thing to do, so 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:25.760 it was limited in the number of organizations that can 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.600 make use of the API, but the concept was a 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.120 strong one. Amazon would follow behind in two thousand and 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:37.240 two and it launched its own API as well as 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:41.320 it launched Amazon Web Services. Now this was not the 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.800 fully fledged Amazon Web Services we would talk about today. 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:47.840 That would happen a few years later when we would 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.680 get introduction of a couple of other big tools, but 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:55.040 it was the beginning of a massive move for Amazon, 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:59.200 one of the most profitable moves that Amazon would ever make. 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:02.400 If you were a developer, this meant you could actually 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:06.839 include Amazon functionality on say your web page, and this 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:09.679 mud give people a chance to search for products and 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.360 do some window shopping right from the comfort of your 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:16.120 web page. Maybe you even have your web page dimn't 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.440 you know, show off products that you're talking about or 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.080 that are related to whatever the web page is focused on, 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.559 that kind of thing. And it meant that by incorporating 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:30.600 that directly into your web page. People could access that 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:33.760 stuff without leaving your site, you know, and your bounce 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:37.560 rate would go down and your engagement rate would go 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.400 way up. Now, it would take a couple more years 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.880 for other companies to really push into API development. It 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.840 was a little slow. These companies were pioneers and others 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:50.040 took a bit of time to kind of catch up. 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.760 For one thing, you have to remember, like two thousand, 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:55.520 two thousand and one, that's when we're talking about the 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:59.600 dot com bubble bursting, especially in the wake of nine 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.080 to eleven and here in the United States, and so 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:04.360 that would end up taking a lot of the wind 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.280 out of the sales of companies that otherwise were innovating 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.720 in the web space. So that I think slowed down 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:14.559 API development. But one of the things we did see 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.359 in the mid two thousands was the emergence of widgets, 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:23.680 which were largely possible because of APIs. Do you all 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:27.280 remember widgets? I mean, there's still technically a thing. It's 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:30.000 not like they went away, it's just they were really 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.280 being pushed really hard in the mid to late two 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.880 thousands on everything from early social media platforms to really 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.720 like I remember seeing them everywhere at cees. Right, you 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.840 would see a refrigerator and it would have widgets, or 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:47.840 a television and it had widgets. Everything had widgets on them, 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.000 and they were always these little icons that linked to 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:55.360 some sort of basic functionality. Right. It was usually very specific, 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:57.640 like it might be a weather report widget, so you 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:01.240 could get a very quick run down on what current 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.440 and predicted whether conditions are or we're going to be. 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:08.559 Or it might be a stock ticker, or it could 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.440 be a news headline ticker. You get the idea. It 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.840 was very specific and purpose built, and it was largely 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:20.120 thanks to APIs that it was possible. Right. The widgets 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:24.600 were typically tapping into some other platforms information and then 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.640 presenting that information to you in the form of the widget. 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:32.000 In two thousand and four, Flicker introduced It's API that 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.520 gave people the chance to embed their images that they 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:38.760 had been storing on Flicker on other platforms, including things 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:42.520 like web pages or social media. That was incredible, Right, 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:47.000 You could have Flicker act as your repository of images, 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:50.040 and then you could use the embed feature to share 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:53.040 those images on other platforms without having to upload the 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.400 same picture to all the different places you wanted. And 0:14:56.480 --> 0:15:00.560 it really streamlined things, and it really pushed Flicker into 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.240 becoming a leader for online images for quite some time 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.320 because they really got ahead of things. In two thousand 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:10.440 and six, we had a couple of big APIs that emerged. 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:15.000 One came from Twitter, you know, Rest in Peace. I guess, 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.200 you know, we could refer to it as X now, 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.600 but it was Twitter back then and Facebook they both 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.000 introduced APIs in two thousand and six, and this gave 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.960 developers a chance to tap into the functionality of those 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.480 platforms in new ways, and that's kind of what led 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.920 to third party Twitter feed readers, for example, like tweet deck. 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:37.680 In fact, tweet deck became so useful and popular that 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:40.680 Twitter actually acquired it and now it belongs to X 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.520 And honestly, I'm curious now what it's called, because I 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:48.240 imagine it's not called tweet deck within X anymore since 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:49.920 they got rid of all the Twitter and tweet stuff 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:52.080 and I didn't look it up, so I don't know. 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.840 I no longer access tweet deck because it's behind a paywall. 0:15:56.200 --> 0:16:00.440 But yeah, so developers were able to add in new 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:05.040 functions in these new services that tapped into these platforms, 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.440 and they were functions that you wouldn't find on the 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.720 vanilla version of the service. So, for example, let's talk 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:16.200 about Twitter and tweet Deck. With tweet Deck, a user 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:21.360 could create a single view that would incorporate multiple Twitter accounts, 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:24.120 separated by columns. So if you were someone like me, 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:26.640 you would have one column that would just show you 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.200 the incoming Twitter feed, like all the posts from the 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.000 folks that you follow. You could have a column that 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:37.240 shows your own personal Twitter messages as well as the 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:39.920 replies and quotes and that kind of stuff, so all 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.760 the engagement with your own Twitter messages. A third column 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:47.960 might show, say, your podcasts tweets and replies and stuff, 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:49.880 so it's the same thing as your own personal account, 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:51.760 but for your podcast account and so on. Like, you 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:55.320 could have multiple columns stretching across the screen, each one 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.480 focusing on something separate on Twitter, but all incorporated into 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.800 a single so you have a very easy way to 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.200 monitor this. This was really useful for social media managers, 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:09.720 right who might be monitoring multiple accounts. Let's say that 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.680 you're a manager and you have several clients. You could 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.760 have a tweet deck set up with all the different 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.280 client columns there and in a one view you can 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:22.920 quickly see what's going on. It's such a useful suite 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.480 of features that Twitter would buy it, and now Elon 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:27.560 Musk has locked it behind a paywall. You have to 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:33.280 be a subscriber to access those features. So yeah, bumber. 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:37.440 It's why I don't really check tech Stuff's Twitter feed anymore, 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:42.080 because I had it incorporated into tweet Deck, and now 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:44.159 I can't access tweet Deck because I'm not a subscriber, 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:49.920 So yeah, it's kind of lost. I could technically log 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:53.400 into x and tech Stuff's account and check it that way, 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:59.159 but y'all, it's just the mental energy needed for me 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:03.160 to do that just doesn't exist in me anyway. Facebook's 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:05.720 API would let developers create all sorts of stuff that 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:07.879 could be built on top of Facebook, including things like 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.359 games and surveys and all that sort of stuff. This 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:14.600 is what eventually led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in fact, 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:20.280 because a developer created a survey tool that was paying 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:23.440 people to take the survey. But what the people didn't 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.480 know is that by agreeing to the survey, which was 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:32.520 all based integrated into Facebook using Facebook's API, then the 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.280 actual survey could gather information not just about the person 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.240 taking the survey in the first place, but all the 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:42.560 people they connected to through Facebook, like if their friends 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:46.359 had public Facebook profiles, the app could then access all 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:49.439 of that information as well. So that's what led to 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:54.120 a big scandal, because it meant that the app developer 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.680 was able to access information from people who never consented 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.520 to share that information in the first place. Facebook ultimately 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.320 changed its API to restrict apps so that they could 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:09.440 only request access to info that was relevant to whatever 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:12.240 the app was doing. So that way, if you were 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.480 to download or install an app that was like a 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:19.160 fun horoscope app, it wasn't for some reason getting access 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:23.080 to all your messages and stuff like that. That would 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:26.320 not be necessary for that particular app. But back in 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:30.000 the old days there were fewer restrictions, and we saw 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:34.280 what happened as a result of that. In two thousand 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.800 and seven, we had another huge development that would have 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:42.200 a big push on APIs, and that was the introduction 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:46.640 of the iPhone. So I've said this before, the iPhone 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:50.119 was not the world's first smartphone. It had followed behind 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:55.160 lots of other smartphones. But before the iPhone, particularly here 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:59.240 in the United States, smartphones were not really a consumer product. 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.600 They were sort of a prosumer product. It was the 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.600 kind of thing you would expect a business executive to own, 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:10.040 like a BlackBerry, something like those types of smartphones. But 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:13.360 your average person didn't have a smartphone. That's not how 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:15.760 they accessed the web. If they were accessing the web 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.040 at all, they were doing so on a desktop or 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:21.720 laptop computer, maybe a web TV if they were one 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.280 of those folks, but otherwise you were accessing it on 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.639 like a computer. The iPhone would change that, right, and 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:32.320 that would mark the beginning of what would become a 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:37.080 massive shift in web development and web design, this migration 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:42.000 to the mobile web. As more people adopted smartphones, there 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:46.280 was this need to make it easier for those folks 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.840 to view and interact with online content. Right, Like, you 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:53.840 couldn't just present a web page to a smartphone the 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:56.719 same way you would to a PC or laptop because 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:01.840 the landscape was to different, right, the size of the 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:06.040 screen was different. It would make it very challenging to 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:08.879 read or interact with stuff that was on a web page. 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:11.160 You had to come about it in a different way. 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:16.520 But that also meant that there were new opportunities to 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:21.760 develop applications that were built on top of APIs that 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:26.679 could work specifically for smartphones, that could lay things out 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:31.239 in a way that made it easier to interact with 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:35.160 the content that was on the web. So the mobile 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:40.879 web really created a huge, huge change in the approach 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:43.160 to APIs. And there was another one that was going 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:45.159 on at the same time, and that was the shift 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:48.639 to the cloud. This was happening more in the background, 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:51.560 but you had more and more companies that were taking 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:56.800 advantage of cloud services in order to offload things that 0:21:56.920 --> 0:22:00.199 traditionally would have to all happen in house. Right, So 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.679 in the old days, if you had a company that 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.679 had its own databases and computer systems and stuff, you 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:10.159 had to keep all of that stuff on premises. You 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:14.200 were responsible for keeping up with all the hardware, maintaining 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:17.639 the software, updating features, that sort of stuff. That's a 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:21.359 lot of work. But cloud services offloaded a lot of 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:25.080 that and really made it possible for software as a 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:28.119 service to emerge. I'll talk a little bit more about 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:30.280 that in just a second. We're going to take another 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:42.760 quick break and we'll be right back. So, yeah, I 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:46.720 mentioned before the break the emergence of cloud services. Now, 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:51.119 they did exist before the mid two thousands, but it 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:53.639 was right around that time where they started to really 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:55.959 take off, and in fact, we could point to two 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:58.040 thousand and six as being a huge year for that 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:02.840 because that's again when Amazon would introduce some new features 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:07.440 in the cloud, like Amazon Compute and Amazon Storage services 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:11.920 that would become hugely influential in the space. In fact, 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:16.440 it made Amazon become the dominant player in the cloud 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:20.920 computing space in many ways. So now you had the 0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:26.080 ability for businesses to tap into functionalities that otherwise they 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:30.120 would have to develop all in house and it might 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:32.640 take them years to do or it might be such 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:35.840 a big investment that they never would be able to 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:40.760 do it. Now, by becoming customers of these cloud computing companies, 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:45.640 they could end up offloading the compute and storage stuff 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:49.480 to another company and get their developers to create new 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:54.240 applications that tapped into that ability and leverage the information 0:23:54.720 --> 0:23:57.760 that the business was gathering. So it became possible to 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:00.879 create entirely new services. And this is really when we 0:24:00.880 --> 0:24:04.879 started to see software as a service explode as a 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:08.680 business model, because developers could create a tool that would 0:24:08.680 --> 0:24:12.320 meet the needs of their customers and then charge their customers, 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:16.560 maybe even setting up a subscription service for their software, 0:24:17.160 --> 0:24:21.359 and that would turn an application into an ongoing revenue generator. 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:23.520 Like in the old days. Let's say you made a 0:24:23.560 --> 0:24:27.120 word processing program. You would sell that in stores and 0:24:27.160 --> 0:24:31.160 you would get a portion of every sale that was made. 0:24:31.400 --> 0:24:34.359 Right that was the old day of days of programming. 0:24:34.920 --> 0:24:37.320 You'd make a program, people would buy a copy of 0:24:37.320 --> 0:24:39.920 the program, you hope that not too many people pirated 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:43.399 your stuff, and you made money. Software as a service 0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:47.439 is totally different. You would make an application and you 0:24:47.440 --> 0:24:51.679 would sell access to that application, which would be based 0:24:51.680 --> 0:24:55.000 in the cloud, built on APIs, tapping into all these 0:24:55.040 --> 0:24:59.800 powerful other platforms, and your customers would pay you an 0:24:59.800 --> 0:25:03.840 on going subscription fee to access that tool, and you 0:25:03.840 --> 0:25:06.399 would be able to make money off the same application 0:25:06.520 --> 0:25:08.919 with the same customer over and over again, as opposed 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:11.000 to doing it that one time and that one point 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:14.800 of sale. So it really was a truly enormous change 0:25:14.800 --> 0:25:18.760 in business. These days, APIs allow developers to make tons 0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:23.600 of new products and services by building on various foundations. Typically, 0:25:23.640 --> 0:25:27.359 the developers are also paying for the use of APIs. 0:25:27.400 --> 0:25:30.480 I mean it depends. The platform may have a tiered 0:25:30.720 --> 0:25:35.359