Google Opening up to Developers

From 2 to 55 APIs in 3 years

April 8th 2008Patrick Chanezon, Google, chanezon@google.comAPI Evangelist

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Google APIs Evangelist: Patrick Chanezon

• Paris - San Francisco

• API Evangelist - OpenSocial

• Checkout, AdWords

• Software plumber

• Java geek… in scripting rehab: Ruby, JavaScript, PHP, Python

• Open Source: ROME, AdWords (Java, C#, Ruby)

• Sun: Blogs, Portals, eCommerce

• Netscape/AOL: LDAP, Calendar, App Servers, CMS, MyNetscape (RSS)

• More on my blog http://wordpress.chanezon.com

• Links and slides at http://del.icio.us/chanezon/

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Google APIs

Why are we doing do it?

• Our mission: “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”– We can’t organize it all ourselves

14 Google APIs on http://code.google.com… and counting!

–Google Data API

–Calendar API

–Maps API

–AdWords API

–Blogger API

–Data APIs

–Desktop SDK

–Earth (KML)

–Enterprise APIs

–Homepage API

–Related Links

–Sitemaps

–Talk (XMPP)

–Toolbar API

–Web Search API

(Circa November 2006, Mainz)

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Google APIs

Why are we doing do it?Our mission: “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”

We can’t organize it all ourselves

32 Google APIs on http://code.google.com… and counting!

–Checkout API

–Data API

–8 services

–Maps API

–AdWords API

–Ajax Search API

–Ajax Feed API

–Desktop SDK

–Enterprise APIs

–Homepage API

–YouTube API

–Sitemaps

–Talk (XMPP)

–Toolbar API

–Google Web Toolkit

–…

(Circa May 2007, Buenos Aires)

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Google APIs

Why are we doing do it?Our mission: “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”

We can’t organize it all ourselves

37 Google APIs on http://code.google.com/apis… and counting!

–Checkout API

–Data API

–8 services

–Maps API

–AdWords API

–Ajax Search API

–Ajax Feed API

–Desktop SDK

–Enterprise APIs

–Homepage API

–YouTube API

–Sitemaps

–Talk (XMPP)

–Toolbar API

–Google Web Toolkit

–…

(Circa September 2007, San Francisco)

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Google APIs Today (Circa April 2008, Redwood City)

wget http://code.google.com/more/ -q -O - | grep products-short-desc | wc -l

55Including 3 Platforms

Why are we doing do it?Our mission (it has not changed): “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible

and useful”We can’t organize it all ourselves

N Google APIs on http://code.google.com/apis… and counting!

Let’s script it so that I can reuse this slide

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Google APIs Trends

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API Technologies as Bridges

Advertiser Ads (AdWords)

Publishers - Ads (AdSense)

SOAP

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Google APIs Grandfather

Nelson Minar

Created APIs at Google

Search API 2002

AdWords API 2005

2006, blog post

“Why SOAP Sucks”

http://tinyurl.com/ykdy32

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Kieden: an API Success Story

2005: 3 guys in an appartment in San Francisco with their Powerbook and one server

Mixed AdWords and SalesForce: created value

Used SalesForce platform for the UI and Database

AdWords API, accessed from their unique server, pushed to SalesForce

Product done in 6 months

Many SalesForce customers

SalesForce bought them that summer

Led to Google-SalesForce alliance in 2006

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Salesforce for Google AdWords

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API Technologies as Bridges

Advertiser Ads (AdWords)

Publishers - Ads (AdSense)

User - Data (Gdata)

Buyers - Sellers (Checkout)

REST

SOAP

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Standard REST Plumbing for Google APIs

Each service wants their own Data API: standardize on a common REST Plumbing

• APIs = Plumbing

"If I had my life to live over again, I'd be a plumber.”

Albert Einstein

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AtomPub for Google Data APIs

REST API, Based on Atom and the Atom Publishing Protocol

"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking…”

Albert Einstein

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First Google Data API: Calendar

GET, POST, PUT, DELETE Calendar Entries

Released in April 2006“...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."Albert Einstein

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20 AtomPub based Data APIs

From Videos to Spreadsheets

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

Albert Einstein

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Google APIs RESTful Standardizer

“'Google Data APIs Protocol' is a horrible name. You can tell that ex-Microsoft employees had a hand in this effort. :)”

Dare Obasanjo (Microsoft)

Adam Bosworth on a bike

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more quotes...

“The benefit is that you'd have a single API that could be used to query, update, and index structured data on the web--anywhere on the web. It's a pretty powerful vision and something I didn't expect to see for a couple more years” - Jeremy Zawodny (Yahoo)

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Some APIs are more complex: Google Checkout

Charge CC8

MerchantMerchant1

2

Shopping cart (xml)

User confirms purchase; CC authorized4

Name, shipping address, email (xml)

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Fulfillment

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Ready to ship7

Charge successful9

CheckoutCheckout

3

Ship10

Fulfillment API

Checkout API

AccountAccount

Initiate return11

Refund API

Order number, account12

Payment to merchant via ACH

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Don Isidro as a metaphor for Web Services

Detective, rational mind, knows a lot, infers the rest

Algorithms

People look for his advice on issues

Visit him in prison

Get answers, can get going with their lives

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API Technologies as Bridges

Advertiser Ads (AdWords)

Publishers - Ads (AdSense)

User - Data (Gdata)

Buyers - Sellers (Checkout)

User - Search results (Ajax Search)

User - Maps (Maps)

Ajax

REST

SOAP

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Ajax API Pioneer: Bret Taylor

+ =+

+ =

Created the Google Maps API in 2005Starting the trend of Ajax APIs:• Ajax Search• Ajax Feed• Ajax Language• OpenSocial

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API Technologies as Bridges

Advertiser Ads (AdWords)

Publishers - Ads (AdSense)

User - Data (Gdata)

Buyers - Sellers (Checkout)

User - Search results (Ajax Search)

User - Maps (Maps)

Build your own bridge (Google Web Toolkit, Gears, App Engine)

Ajax

REST

SOAP

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Google APIs Godfather: Chris DiBona

http://code.google.com/opensource/

Google Open Source Program office

• Summer of Code

• Project Hosting

• Over 1M lines of Google code open sourced in more than 100 projects

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Platforms, Standards and Open Source

Making the web better, by solving big issues for developers:

Ajax Applications

Offline web applications

Social Applications: OpenSocial

Mobile applications

Scaling web applications: Google App Engine

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OpenSocial: A Standard for Everyone

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Gartner Hype Cycle

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OpenSocial Hype Cycle

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OpenSocial Trends: Yahoo!

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Google APIs Guide: Hal Varian

OpenSocial is a straightforward application of chapters 8 and 9

“Standards change competition for a market to competition within a market”

• Network Effects

• Lock-In and Switching Costs

• Standards

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Google APIs “Benevolent Dictator”: Guido van Rossum

The 55th API: Google App Engine (Announced yesterday)

BigTable and GFS exposed in Python

Google APIs: Auth and Mail

Automatic Scaling and Load Balancing

Open Source local development environment

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Google App Engine

"We will encourage you to develop the three great virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris.”

Larry Wall, Programming Perl (1st edition), Oreilly And Associates

(see Jeremy Zawodny’s talk this afternoon for details)

Works for Python programmers too:-)

Larry and Guido, Credits Tim Bray

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Google APIs Leader: Vic Gundotra

Experimenting with Events

Platforms and Standards

APIs and S’mores

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Google Developer Days

A two day developer gathering focused on pushing the boundaries of web applications.

May 28-29, 2008

San Francisco

Learn more and register at http://code.google.com/events/io

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Conclusion

All Services can benefit from an API: “Innovation happens elsewhere”

Solve big problems for developers

All APIs should be self service

No ideology for technology choices: pragmatism wins

Listen to developers, Participate in the conversation

Open Source, Open Standards better than closed Platforms

Code speaks better than Slideware

Get started today at http://code.google.com/

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Questions