Here’s an example of how a business partnership might come about these days. Interaction with an online API partner portal will act as the initial “conversation” that leads to the partnership. If you want to integrate with Salesforce.com, you go to the Salesforce partner portal, figure out the relevant SDK/API, build an app and then submit it to the Salesforce AppExchange.  You don’t ever need to actually talk with anyone at Salesforce to become a business partner with the company.

Another example is the way many companies now enable access to their Web sites via Facebook Connect, Google+ Login or Twitter Login. This represents the first step towards establishing a business partnership with Facebook, Google or Twitter. It’s not new in the Web world and has been discussed for years. What makes it relevant to this discussion is the way it’s being applied to out-dated business processes and practices.

Great platform companies have realized this, “robotized” their business development processes and rationalized their business development teams. As robots are to manufacturing, APIs are to business development. Better technology means that we can focus our human resources on more valuable activities, since handshakes are now being made over OAuth instead of costly dinners and drinks.

Layer 7’s March 14 webinar, ROI for APIs – which will feature input from TechCrunch and AT&T – should help to clear up some of this confusion. In particular, the webinar will focus on how hackthons can be used to gather valuable data for API ROI measurement.

How you measure your API ROI will depend on the purpose your APIs play in the greater business picture. Therefore, to provide a little primer for the webinar, I thought it would be helpful to give examples of a few API business models and how they might generate revenue.

• Per API Call
  Text messages sent via an API are billed at $0.01 per message
• Per API Payload
  Voice transcriptions via an API are billed at $0.01 per word
• Transactional Revenue
  An API call delivers a purchase
• Firehose API
  A monthly subscription provides unlimited API access
• Platform API
  An existing SaaS platform provides an API for partner integrations

To learn more, register for the webinar – ROI for APIs: Using Hackathons to Evaluate Your API Program featuring TechCrunch and AT&T.

Las Vegas Mobile App Hackathon (November 16-17)
The local developer community is thriving in Sin City, which may be a surprise to many. I was very impressed with the talent of the developers in Vegas, most of whom were writing native Objective C or Java for their iOS and Android apps. Also, the local PhoneGap user group manager was onsite, providing support for Adobe’s app development framework. The apps produced were quite polished and impressive. Several included API integrations while others came with plans for future Web integration of APIs, to add context and information.

Miami Mobile App Hackathon (December 14-15)
This hackathon brought an impressive group of sponsors together including AT&T, Microsoft Azure, Blackberry Dev, GitHub and – of course – Layer 7. With over 200 signups and some highly technical evangelists sent by the sponsors, I was excited to see what kinds of apps would be produced. The developers mashed together numerous Web services using native code or PhoneGap. It was great to see the local developer community come together, with numerous local start-up incubator leaders onsite scouting for new talent and investment opportunities.

For 2013, Layer 7 will once again be joining the AT&T Hackathon team for several events. Many organizations with APIs powered by Layer 7 will be promoting their APIs and providing prizes at these events. Stay tuned – we’ll be helping evangelize a lot of great APIs in 2013!

Find out more about upcoming Layer 7 Hackathons

For example, hackathons provide a fantastic way to grow developer awareness of your API as a brand in and of itself, separate from your core business. When the developers who attend your hackathon go back to their day jobs on Monday, they have added your API to their programming tool belts and will use it, when appropriate, in upcoming projects. Additionally, hackathons will attract the attention of thought leaders and influencers who will mention your API on blogs and forums, spreading the word further. These benefits can deliver considerable value but they can also be difficult to quickly quantify.

Nevertheless, API evangelists will be held accountable for demonstrating the real-world value of their hackathons. One way to do this is to show how hackathons enable your company to conduct developer user experience (DevUX) research at a minimal cost. Gathering feedback and data from hackathons provides the most cost-effective way to optimize the quality of your API as a product by answering questions like:

• How user-friendly is my registration process?
• Do my APIs ever return incorrect or unexpected results?
• What new features should I add to future versions of my API?
• Is the skill level of my API appropriate for long-tail app developers?
• What kind of tutorials and other documentation will my developers need?
• Which programming languages are my developers using to implement my APIs?
• How useful is my API and what are the most common/innovative use cases for it?

The data and feedback you gather will also help you to further demonstrate ROI by providing the answers to questions such as:

• How many developers registered and how many actually attended?
• Did the hackathon appeal to the types of developer we want to attract?
• Did any valuable or innovative apps get prototyped?

Hackathons offer a fantastic way to build excitement around your API and optimize the quality of your interface. If you still have any doubts, join us for a hackathon (and participate!) to see how other API platforms are doing it.

1. Hybrid HTML5/Native Mobile Apps
The term “hybrid mobile app” is often employed to describe an app that is created using a WORA (write once run anywhere) framework like PhoneGap or Appcelerator. These frameworks basically make it simple for developers to generate mobile apps using HTML5, Javascript and CSS.

In the case of Phonegap this app will essentially be a “wrapped” Web site. For PhoneGap apps, developers will often use a UI framework as well, such as JQuery Mobile or Sencha. These UI frameworks look “good enough” on mobile devices, although they should not be confused with the true native UI controls of iOS, Android etc.

In the case of Appcelerator, the generated app can actually leverage the true native sliders, scrollers, date pickers etc. of the device OS. The limitation to this approach is that a developer is fully locked in to what Appcelerator provides. Currently it offers builds for native iOS and Android as well as an HTML5 build, which could potentially be run through PhoneGap.

2. Hybrid API-Driven/Thin-Client Mobile Apps
The term is also used to describe apps that are installed on and run entirely on the mobile device – similar to how a totally native, offline game or other app might work – but which rely on a data connection for presenting Web-based resources, enterprise application functionality or other information assets.

Of course, these information assets are made accessible to the apps via APIs, which is where Layer 7 comes into the equation. In tomorrow’s webinar, I’ll be mainly focused on hybrid mobile apps that are powered by APIs and discussing aspects that are important to address when developing an HTML5 hybrid native app that is also a hybrid API-driven native app. Click here if you want to find out more about the webinar or if you’d like to register.

Tomorrow (that’s Friday November 9) at 10:30am, I’ll be discussing the challenges of mobile app UX at QCon in San Francisco. In a presentation called “HTML5 Cross-Platform Mobile Apps Integrating APIs”, I’ll be outlining significant challenges around API-driven mobile apps, as well as mistakes developers commonly make, and suggesting best practices for addressing them.

I hope you can make, if you’re at the show. Also, be sure to visit Layer 7 at booth #11.

Mobile App Hackathon, Denver, CO (August 17-18). Layer 7 brought payment APIs that gave developers tools for integrating payments into apps and we were onsite providing technical support for iOS, Android and HTML5. Layer 7 also provided Apple TVs as prizes for the team that achieved the best technical integration of our customer API. The winning app was Open Perks, designed to make redeeming digital coupons and loyalty rewards easier.

Social Good Mobile App Hackathon, New York, NY (September 25-26). Apps built over the course of this weekend aimed to solve major social issues – for example, by alerting people when blood donation banks need their certain blood type or by improving support systems for alcoholics. We were there to offer onsite technical assistance and help teams with user experience/user interface design as well as general prototyping best practices.

Hack Across the Pond Mobile App Hackathon, London, UK (October 5-7). This hackathon – produced in partnership with the MIT Sloan Business Club and the UK Trade & Investment Agency – aimed to bring together developers in Boston and London. Utilizing simulcast video streaming, developers worked together on projects at both sites. We were onsite in London, providing organizational and technical assistance.

New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s Truancy Task Force & NYC Digital Hackathon, New York, NY (Oct 12-13). Onsite at AT&T’s downtown NYC office, we were again honored to be included in a prestigious group of sponsors. We gave a presentation on How APIs are Changing the World and it was a pleasure to work with and provide technical support to members of New York’s thriving, innovative developer community.

At Layer 7, we work with our customers to help them drive real and measurable business results from their APIs. One specific method that has proven successful over time is running software competitions. As a partner with the leading online competition platform, ChallengePost, Layer 7 helps customers create developer challenges that get the desired results.

Within the scope of a hackathon – even one with unlimited Red Bull and experienced developers – time constraints will always force teams to cut corners and deliver prototypes or alpha/beta applications. By taking the idea of a hackathon and stretching it out over weeks or months, API publishers see drastically improved results.

Online challenges give developers the time to write quality code and build their applications from alpha, to beta, to production. Developer challenges also give API publishers more meaningful ways to engage with the participating teams. Meanwhile, offering prizes creates incentives that drive real, committed interest from developers.

I’ll be looking more deeply into the ins and outs of developer competitions on October 4, when I co-present a webinar called Open APIs + Software Competitions = Innovative & Creative Solutions, alongside Brandon Kessler of ChallengePost. Click here if you want to see more details of this event or if you’re interested in registering to attend.