Facebook and eBay APIs and Distribution

There have been a number of interesting posts over the past few weeks about how successful startups like iLike have used APIs of sucessful destinations like Facebook to aggressively grow their business. Traditionally it has been the technical members of the start-up team who have been responsible for understanding the various APIs in the marketplace and deciding which ones are candidates for integration with the start-up’s products or services. As such the providers of API (such as Facebook for example) have done a terrible job of documenting and marketing their APIs. I think this has to change. Some smart site, again such as Facebook, is going to realize that making their API’s capabilities accessible to marketing people within start-ups will enable them to build an even more powerful ecosystem than tens or hundreds of sites that are using the APIs today. Now why is this important you ask? Well look no further than Microsoft Windows. Why did Windows become so pervasive? It certainly was not because of its usability, security or power. Windows became pervasive because of its distribution from hardware OEMs who put Windows on their computers and from a huge network of small software publishers who created a vast array of applications that enabled users to essentially do whatever they wanted. I would argue that Microsoft has not been able to recreate this ecosystem on the net and neither has Google for the most part. My Space was the most logical party to create a platform to enable small Internet developers to build a network of value added products but My Space has decided that they want to follow the monolithic Apple paradigm. This is a shame and missed opportunity in my humble opinion. I think what Facebook is doing with a relatively open API will over the long hall lead to potentially greater returns than My Space. If they do not inhibit their small software publishers from innovating then they will have a level of functionality around their platform that My Space, Google, Yahoo or Microsoft will not be able to match. If history is a guide, most of these small internet developers will not have the resources or desire to build upon multiple APIs (assuming the winner makes theirs a proprietary API) so it is a classic winner takes all. It will be fun and interesting to watch how this turns out.