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European Identity Summit 2012 API Economy Presentation - trends and business models for the API Economy.

Over the past several years, I've been writing about how government data is moving into the marketplaces, underpinning ideas, products and services. Open government data and application programming interfaces to distribute it, more commonly known as APIs, increasingly look like fundamental public infrastructure for digital government in the 21st century. What I'm looking for now is more examples of startups and businesses that have been created using open data or that would not be able to continue operations without it. If big data is a strategic resource, it's important to understand how and where organizations are using it for public good, civic utility and economic benefit.

Oracle v. Google has all the ingredients of an epic, high-stakes courtroom battle: a damages claim of up to $1 billion over the use of Java in the popular Android operating system, testimony by both Larrys (CEOs Page and Ellison) in the first week alone, and, of course, the disposition of some interesting legal issues, not the least of them whether APIs can be copyrighted. But, more than all of that, the case serves as an important teaching moment, illustrating much of what doesn't work in our patent system.

Open311 is a form of technology that provides open channels of communication for issues that concern public space and public services. Primarily, Open311 refers to a standardized protocol for location-based collaborative issue-tracking. By offering free web API access to an existing 311 service, Open311 is an evolution of the phone-based 311 systems that many cities in North America offer.

In the middle of last year, the hacking group Anonymous tried but failed to attack various Vatican Internet servers. A report that was just released by Imperva shows the extent of their prowess, and is a blueprint for other corporate security managers who want to try to protect their own networks in the future from miscreants. While the report itself doesn't divulge the destination of the attack, it has been widely reported by the New York Times and other news outlets that it was the Vatican.

L'un des grands intérêts de Twitter réside dans son API relativement ouverte, c'est-à-dire la possibilité offerte aux développeurs de construire des applications basées sur les données délivrées par le site de micro-blogging. C'est ce qui donne lieu à la kyrielle d'applications et d'outils destinés à améliorer l'utilisation de Twitter. Clients, outils de veille, jeux, statistiques… Tous ces services, développés non pas par Twitter mais par d'autres personnes ou entreprises, ont permis de créer un véritable écosystème en perpétuelle évolution. Mais il y a un problème, et de taille : ces services reprenant l'API de Twitter profitent à leurs développeurs, et pas au site de micro-blogging lui-même, qui a bien du mal à trouver des sources de monétisation satisfaisantes. Ce qui a fait le succès populaire de Twitter peut également causer sa ruine financière, ou tout au moins l'absence de bénéfices… Ce n'est d'ailleurs pas le seul réseau social à connaître cette tension entre réussite en termes d'usage et déconvenues sur le plan financier : on se rappelle que Facebook, malgré un nombre d'utilisateurs assez conséquent déjà à l'époque, n'a atteint la rentabilité qu'en 2009, après 5 ans d'existence.

Berlin-based company Formulor was founded by a team with over ten years of experience in laser-cutting and design. Formulor launched in 2010 and became our first manufacturing partner in the EU. With the release of the Personal Factory API, the Formulor team began working on a whole new site and improved user interface. The new Formulor site is now live and features a great built-in design tool that lets you create your design right on the page. Just pick your material (25 to choose from), select a size and thickness, then start creating your design with the various shape, text, and line tools

I am overwhelmed with a geeky sense of joy when I search for "Philadelphia Flyers" on Google and instantly get a schedule of upcoming games as well as scores from previous ones at the top of the results. Those type of "instant answers" make my day go smoother and keeps me from having to dig through the top ten results for the high-level things that I'm looking for, such as sports scores or flight schedules.