Ever since the buzz word “web 2.0” made it to the prime time, and a steady flow of web 2.0 websites were being released, I think it was also the beginning of something more important, the byproduct of Web 2.0; The API.
While web 2.0 websites were focussed on the end user, developers of these websites started providing access to the core services their websites offered. They started releasing well documented APIs, to access the functionality of their websites.
While web 2.0 was revolutionising the user experience, lesser publicised was the beginning of another revolution; the programmable web.
I think the rapid release of these quite powerful APIs, are, in some part, due to the open source movement. Regardless of how or why they came about however, I do think they’re the most important aspect of web 2.0. They’re giving birth to a new range of sophisticated web applications which have been built rapidly, built robustly, and mostly made available for free. They’re are even websites devoted to mashups and the programmableweb.
I think the wide range of API’s will in future become the key proponent in a change that is already starting to happen, something which will forever change the way in which applications and software are built.
Currently, web applications are built in programming languages, such as .Net, PHP and ColdFusion. I think this will change to a large degree, and be replaced by an Internet Development Environment, if you will; some sort of integration language.
This new breed of development environment/language will source small parts of application functionality from pre-developed APIs, integrating all of the parts to make a whole (a web application). There are already examples of one application, integrating services/functionalty from one or more external websites, commonly known as mashups. Mashups are only the beginning however, as they still have a programming language and platform on which they’re deployed.
Take for example Yahoo! Pipes, it embodies the notion of programming the Internet itself (from an RSS data perspective anyway).
There are challenges to overcome before something like this will come to fruition however. I’ll keep posting on this topic, as I think it will be one of the most significant changes for the web in a long time.
technorati tags:web2.0, programmableweb
Filed under: web 2.0
