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The API-as-a-Marketplace

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Re: The API-as-a-Marketplace

#2

Post by compscistd »

Reminds me of energy brokerages, which are a thing in some US states. Rough idea is energy-consumers will ask for energy from an intermediary (the brokerage), which will purchase electricity in the form of a contract from a pool of suppliers for the best available price.

Re: The API-as-a-Marketplace

#3

Post by colinclerk »

I wish OP would dive a bit more into the Stripe example as not-a-marketplace.

There's Spreedly, which at first glance might be more of a marketplace.

But then there's also an argument that Stripe itself is an API-as-a-marketplace, where they support different card providers/types, ACH, and a host of global methods.

Is one interpretation more correct than the other? (at least as it relates to an investment thesis)

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Another example is the Priceline API (and the GDS's before them), which I believe solidly qualify as an API-as-a-Marketplace under this definition.

Re: The API-as-a-Marketplace

#8

Post by zemvpferreira »

My girlfriend is (one of the many people) building a Blockchain-API-as-a-marketplace for commodities trading: https://www.vakt.com

It's amazing how many billions of dollars are still transacted via phone and paper records by organisations who ultimately have to rely on good faith to get oil from A to B (in possession of C and owned by Z). I can't imagine what it would take to verify a chain of actions taken a couple of years ago with the systems in place. Impossible.

I imagine other commodities are the same. I would never have guessed there's still so much efficiency to be gained in these huge, old-as-dirt markets. Technology, huh.

Re: The API-as-a-Marketplace

#10

Post by coderholic »

ksec wrote: post #4

First time I come across .vc as TLD.

I've been seeing them more and more frequently for venture capitalist firms, in twitter bios etc. Thought I'd check our (https://host.io) ranking data for .vc domains:

    => select * from hostio.rank where split_part(domain, '.', 2) = 'vc' limit 25;
        domain    |  rank
    --------------+--------
     bc.vc        |  55389
     8x8.vc       |  66295
     bjn.vc       |  74899
     oscar.vc     |  81721
     plus2.vc     |  89589
     kissanime.vc |  96140
     compre.vc    |  97865
     nt.vc        | 106039
     animo.vc     | 107111
     yts.vc       | 115567
     mylink.vc    | 120827
     dot.vc       | 151363
     luz.vc       | 158821
     vook.vc      | 179284
     huobi.vc     | 202050
     app.vc       | 206374
     pornhub.vc   | 248283
     imi.vc       | 270076
     sf9.vc       | 276701
     btov.vc      | 281670
     175sf.vc     | 283532
     99s.vc       | 288077
     icoc.vc      | 302644
     1776.vc      | 318693
     fenbushi.vc  | 331303
    (25 rows)
Nothing particularly popular, and not many of those are VC firms! Only 406 in the top 10 million domains:

    => select count(1) from hostio.rank where split_part(domain, '.', 2) = 'vc' and rank
You can download the full top 10M from https://host.io/rankings if you're interested in playing with the data yourself!
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