APIs: A Strategy Guide: Creating Channels with Application Programming Interfaces

You should read this book if you are remotely interested in the following: 1. Why your company needs to have an API 2. How to design, secure and manage the API 3. What API strategies your company should adopt, including legal and operational considerations 4. How to measure the success of the API 5. How to drive API engagement The authors have years of experience in the API space and I think they did a pretty good job distilling their collective wisdom and learned best practices in this "short and sweet" booklet (134-pages!) I think it is important for the success of any API initiative that *all* stakeholders read this book to get on the same page of what needs to take place to ensure the success of the initiative. It's hard to argue with the "tried and true" practices of which this book is rife. If you're interested in getting into the nitty gritty technical details of how to build an API, I highly recommend RESTful Web Services Cookbook: Solutions for Improving Scalability and Simplicity as a technical companion read to this book. Read this book first, and then delve into the technical details with Subbu's book. If you're an executive who's on the fence regarding APIs, you must read this book to get educated on the subject. It's important for your team to get your full support which they won't unless you fully understand the whats, hows and whys of APIs. You need to learn how to speak API and this book will get you fluent in no time.

I thought it was a good overview and a good summary of what all the hype and noise is about. It is not a comprehensive technical how-to manual but it is technical enough to be useful.

I read through the many reviews ahead of purchasing the digital addition of this book. As a product manager / program manager I found the book to be very helpful. Naturally, it depends on your needs and perspective. I'm not surprised those with experience around implementation of APIs or the business concepts around API's might not find the content as helpful. But, for those that are not familiar with API implementation - or, more specifically - how to think about the business strategy around an organization considering development of an APIR platform, I think the book provides a lot of helpful information - it's more about considerations, business models, general thoughts on agreements, etc. If a product manager has to put together a strategy document, this book would be very helpful.

Be aware that this is not a technical book, it is aimed at a non-technical business audience. Unfortunately the product description does not make this clear so anyone expecting a technical discussion of API design and implementation will be disappointed. That said, this was a good introduction to APIs for the intended audience. It goes into details about the reasons for developing an API, what it takes to build a successful API, and some of the pitfalls to avoid while developing and maintaining an API.

While the first half has some advocacy, the examples are thought-provoking. The concept of private vs public APIs was also very useful. While this is not a technical guide, it has enough to help a business person become conversant. Fast, easy read. "A company without an API in 2014 is like a company without a website in 2004 - behind the times."

Good guide for an absolute beginner, easy to understand, helped me wrap my head around the topic - but kinda generic in the extreme.

Most resources out there on APIs tend to be narrowly focused on some particular technical aspect (e.g SOA design, REST, SOAP etc), but there are few resources that provide an overview of how all that actually fits in with a business. This book goes into everything from the types of APIs, the business cases for each, API business models and pricing strategies, basic API design tips (some REST concepts, but it doesn't go in too deeply; there are lots of other books for that!), versioning options, API user management and security, API operations and asset management, legal considerations, and how to build an API developer community. Really an excellent resource for getting prepared to expose an API for internal or public use.

A good high level overview, probably targeted more towards a business audience than a developer audience. Helpful for anyone interested in a broad understanding of API strategy and tech basics, and enough to be dangerous when dealing with developers and business stakeholders. Recommended!

This book will give you an overview of API and it is explained in very simple language that anyone can understand the topic.

O livro aborda todos os temas relevantes para se ter um programa de API's. Vale a leitura, especialmente para quem é novo no assunto.

awesome

If you look for some code snippet to copy and paste into your project, don't waste your time and money. I think even those occasional references to specific technologies is unwarranted. On the other hand, if you are looking at how approach and govern API to enable SOA in your enterprise, this is a book for you. I think Netflix implementation of private/public API is the road to the future. As such, Daniel Jacobson's book who implemented web API in NPR and Netflix is a gem.

It's more a business approach to APIs than a technical one, but well writen and with valuable info