This Month we have the pleasure of introducing Areos Ledesma as our guest blog contributor. Areos recently used the [vzaar api](http://developer.vzaar.com/) for one of his projects and has held posts as Interactive Consultant at Sears Holdings Corporation and is currently Senior Manager, Program Management at Sapient.
[AUTHOR: Areos Ledesma ](http://www.linkedin.com/in/areosledesma):
It’s amazing how much clients rely on our experience within the digital landscape to make decisions that shape their services and products. This can happen when we engage with a traditional business such as a brick and mortar looking to expand by shifting more budget and focus to digital. It can also happen when we’re hired by a new business built primarily – or even exclusively – on digital. What’s amazing about the latter situation is that our research and recommendation can and often will dictate their success or failure.
These days research is as important as technology because features that already exist can be “yours” without the pain and cost of rebuilding. And that can benefit everyone involved (including us) even if your client doesn’t know how it works.
Meet API. It’s one acronym we “tech guys” know well, but lots of people don’t.
In past projects I have integrated the minutest functionality through an API such as a news headline feed in a page with low visibility for a Mortgage Broker site. I have also integrated full blown white-label video trans-coding turnkey solutions where the client couldn’t fathom how much technology had to be in place to enable a video clip transit from a camcorder inside a bedroom in Philadelphia all the way to a site visitor that’s watching in Shanghai about 15 minutes later. And if it wasn’t for our friend API, it would have never happened because of the astronomical costs to develop a custom solution of the same capabilities.
So yes… [API ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_programming_interface)is our friend, and during planning phases of my projects I often catch myself thinking, “Why don’t we just use an API?” If the answer is affirmative, the first step is research. And at high level, my thinking process starts with two general categories of questions:
1. Does third party really make sense?
- What’s the complexity and cost of minimum requirements?
- Would it make financial sense to build it in-house? (Often no…)
- Or is it cheaper and more reliable to utilize a third party? (Often yes…)
- Are there third party vendors capable of meeting all minimum requirements? (Often yes…)
- If so, what’s the selection criteria?
2. Do we have a winner?
- Who are the 800lbs. gorillas in this specific area of technology? (Start a matrix…)
- Who are their competitors and key differentiators? (Go beyond the elevator pitch!)
- What are some of their tech attributes? Open source vs. licensed, CDN, pricing model, admin tools, reliability, performance, do they offer a robust API … a-ha! There’s that acronym again! (And by now it could be the one that tilts the scale toward a selection)
- And finally… do they have a strong financial backbone? (Don’t ever underestimate this one. You don’t want to push your client toward a tech vendor only to find out they don’t know where their pay checks are coming from in the next 90 days…if you don’t ask, there’s a good chance your client will.)
It’s incredible how much API’s have matured in the last few years. Capabilities once thought to be highly advanced or premium are now standard, and robust API’s supported by good documentation are simply expected of strong technology companies. We can no longer assume an API “can’t do that”. Today’s questions are “how does it do it?”…and “how fast can you get us on it?”
[Areos Ledesma ](http://www.linkedin.com/in/areosledesma)