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Google Announces APIs Scheduled for Shutdown

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Re: Google Announces APIs Scheduled for Shutdown

#21

Post by iqster »

This make me think about something Fred Wilson said at TC Disrupt ...

Don’t be a Google Bitch, don’t be a Facebook Bitch, and don’t be a Twitter Bitch. Be your own Bitch. (link: http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/23/fred-wilson-be-your-own-bit...)

I've spent the last few days trying to use the terribly documented (and frequently changing) Facebook API ... and I wonder, why am I putting myself through this abuse? FB is not unique here ... Twitter's APIs are pretty flakey too in terms of how often they fail. It made me realize that my objectives and that of my API's provider are clearly not the same.

I love APIs but I'm tired of getting beaten up by them.

Re: Google Announces APIs Scheduled for Shutdown

#22

Post by adriand »

iqster wrote: post #21

This make me think about something Fred Wilson said at TC Disrupt ... Don’t be a Google Bitch, don’t be a Facebook Bitch, and don’t be a Twitter Bitch. Be your own Bitch. (link: http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/23/fred-wilson-be-your-own-bit... ) I've spent the last few days trying to use the terribly documented (and frequently changing) Facebook API ... and I wonder, why am I putting myself through this abuse? FB is no…

Perhaps there's a SaaS opportunity to build an intermediary API for these other services. It would present a single, sensible, unified API to developers, and would negotiate all of the crappy APIs of other services on the other side.

Facebook changes their API? No problem, API Intermediary simply updates its Facebook API calls once, maintaining the same developer-facing API as before. Google Translate gets deprecated? No problem, API Intermediary just switches translation providers to Microsoft.

Of course this would be a ton of work to build and maintain, but therein lies the value to others. Because of that, it probably couldn't be free (who would want that headache for nothing?) and it would probably not always offer the full range of capabilities that direct API access would, but it may still be profitable.

Re: Google Announces APIs Scheduled for Shutdown

#23

Post by po »

skymt wrote: post #10
jot wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That one surprised me the most. Message at http://code.google.com/apis/language/translate/overview.html : "The Google Translate API has been officially deprecated as of May 26, 2011. Due to the substantial economic burden caused by extensive abuse, the number of requests you may make per day will be limited and the API will be shut off completely on December 1, 2011. For website translations, we encourage you to use…

Perhaps "abuse" means toys like this: http://www.translationparty.com/

That's not abuse... they could easily have blocked a single website. I'm thinking it would have to be spammers using google translate to generate content or something.

Re: Google Announces APIs Scheduled for Shutdown

#24

Post by rratkows »

adriand wrote: post #22
iqster wrote: post #21

This make me think about something Fred Wilson said at TC Disrupt ... Don’t be a Google Bitch, don’t be a Facebook Bitch, and don’t be a Twitter Bitch. Be your own Bitch. (link: http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/23/fred-wilson-be-your-own-bit... ) I've spent the last few days trying to use the terribly documented (and frequently changing) Facebook API ... and I wonder, why am I putting myself through this abuse? FB is no…

Perhaps there's a SaaS opportunity to build an intermediary API for these other services. It would present a single, sensible, unified API to developers, and would negotiate all of the crappy APIs of other services on the other side. Facebook changes their API? No problem, API Intermediary simply updates its Facebook API calls once, maintaining the same developer-facing API as before. Google Translate gets deprecated…

I believe there is an opportunity.

I believe the biggest hurdle with Enterprise adoption of SaaS is data integration and effectively all SaaS vendors combined are building the tower of babel. We are a SaaS company, we only use SaaS products and we probably have about 15 of them. Some of them integrate because they partner with NetSuite, other are stand alone and that is OK for now but for true Business Intelligence we need them to integrate. Infomatica is doing a booming business, inpart to the SaaS demands.

Re: Google Announces APIs Scheduled for Shutdown

#25

Post by iqster »

rratkows wrote: post #24
adriand wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there's a SaaS opportunity to build an intermediary API for these other services. It would present a single, sensible, unified API to developers, and would negotiate all of the crappy APIs of other services on the other side. Facebook changes their API? No problem, API Intermediary simply updates its Facebook API calls once, maintaining the same developer-facing API as before. Google Translate gets deprecated…

I believe there is an opportunity. I believe the biggest hurdle with Enterprise adoption of SaaS is data integration and effectively all SaaS vendors combined are building the tower of babel. We are a SaaS company, we only use SaaS products and we probably have about 15 of them. Some of them integrate because they partner with NetSuite, other are stand alone and that is OK for now but for true Business Intelligence w…

Interesting... what functionality does Netsuite offer? Sorry ...noob question :p

Re: Google Announces APIs Scheduled for Shutdown

#26

Post by stock_toaster »

gcb wrote: post #19
stock_toaster wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> c) Google has only one true product, and it's advertising I would argue that Google's one true product is you (the user, and data about that user). Advertising is simply their primary (currently?) means to sell that product (you) to other companies/businesses.

With adsense they can still sell ads even if they do not have 'you'. ... only guessing of course. have no idea if gmail makes more with ads than the whole of adsense.

You make a good point.

I imagine (very much a guess on my part) that Google would prefer to have eyeballs on their own impressions of adsense than those on other sites though -- because there would be no payout in those cases.

Still, I would think that serving ad impressions on 3rd party sites is likely a large part of their current business. Maybe those are just eyeballs they rent as appose to own then. ;)

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