1. Interfaces for the Cloud: Curating the Data
Digital Methods Winter School Workshop 2012
Anne Helmond, Bernhard Rieder, Richard Rogers

2. An application programming interface (API) is a source
code based specification intended to be used as an
interface by software components to communicate with
each other. An API may include specifications for
routines, data structures,object classes, and variables.
(Wikipedia)
API introduction
by Anne Helmond

3. Application Programming Interface
“this refers to a set of tools that developers can use to
access structured data.” (boyd and Crawford)
“Machine-facing interfaces for your application” p. 331
“software interface to your website” p. 332
“weaving the Guardian into the fabric of the Web” p. 331
API

4. When used in the context of web development, an API
is typically a defined set of Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP) request messages, along with a definition of the
structure of response messages, which is usually in an
Extensible Markup Language (XML) or JavaScript Object
Notation (JSON) format. While "Web API" is virtually a
synonym for web service, the recent trend (so-called
Web 2.0) has been moving away from Simple Object
Access Protocol (SOAP) based services towards more
direct Representational State Transfer (REST) style
communications.[5] Web APIs allow the combination of
multiple services into new applications known as
mashups.[6] - (Wikipedia)
Web API / web service

5. The web as platform
Historically, some types of software like desktop
operating systems have been called 'platforms' because
through their APIs they provide the foundation on which
other programs are built. The phrase 'web as platform'
refers to fact that as web sites start providing their own
APIs, they too are becoming a platform on which other
programs can be built. (Programmableweb)

6. Programmable web
Definitionally, a “platform” is a system that can be
reprogrammed and therefore customized by outside
developers—users—and in that way, adapted to
countless needs and niches that the platform’s original
developers could not have possibly contemplated, much
less had time to accommodate.
[T]he key term in the definition of platform is
‘programmed’. If you can program it, then it’s a
platform. If you can’t, then it’s not. - Marc Andreessen

7. APIs and Web 2.0
A Platform Beats an Application Every Time - O’Reilly 2005

8. Flickr: blog this photo

9. realtime photo search
twitter firehose

10. APIs enable mashups

11. IFTT: combining cloud services

12. IFTT: combining cloud services

13. IFTT: combining cloud services

14. IFTT: combining cloud services

15. IFTT: combining cloud services

16. IFTT: combining cloud services

17. IFTT: combining cloud services

18. IFTT: combining cloud services
an interface for programming the application
programming interface

19. API calls

20. API literature

21. API literature
In relation to user interface/programming interface: Cramer and Fuller 2008
In relation to the reliance of Web 2.0 on APIs: Langlois, McKelvey, Elmer and
Werbin 2009
In relation to the volatility of methods: Helmond and Sandvig 2010
In relation to proprietary API calls: Berry 2011
In relation to Big Data: boyd and Crawford 2011
In relation to data gathering skills: Manovich 2011
In relation to scraping: Marres and Weltevrede 2012

22. #1 limited API calls
There are limits to how many calls and changes you can
make in a day
API usage is rate limited with additional fair use limits
to protect Twitter from abuse.
https://dev.twitter.com/docs/things-every-developer-should-know

23. #1 limited API calls

24. #2 changing APIs

25. #2 changing APIs

26. #2 changing APIs

27. #2 changing APIs

28. #2 changing APIs
“This document and the APIs herein are subject to
change at any time. We will version the API, but may
deprecate early versions aggressively.” - Love, Delicious.
http://delicious.com/help/api

29. #3 APIs and control

30. #4 APIs and access
“Register for a free API key and get 133% more
queries/day.” Topsy

31. #4 APIs and access
Twitter Inc. makes a fraction of its material available to
the public through its APIs. The ‘firehose’ theoretically
contains all public tweets ever posted and explicitly
excludes any tweet that a user chose to make private or
‘protected.’ Yet, some publicly accessible tweets are
also missing from the firehose. Although a handful of
companies and startups have access to the firehose,
very few researchers have this level of access. (boyd
and Crawford 2011)

32. There are different data gathering methods: The API is
the polite way of gathering data and scraping could be
considered the impolite way of harnessing data: “You
can arrange digital research methods on a spectrum of
niceness. On the one hand you use the industry-
provided API. On the other you scrape Facebook for all
it is worth.”(Helmond & Sandvig 2010)
Scrapers stand in complex relations to API’s -
compared against the industry provided (limited) APIs,
scrapers may be viewed as the less polite variant of
data collection and in some cases may works against
copyright, terms of service, and “trespass to chattels”.
(Marres & Weltevrede 2012)
# 5 ethics: APIs “versus” scraping

33. how to study/critique APIs?
by Bernhard Rieder
history of APIs
the “past” and the “turn”
lines of variation and change

34. project proposals
validity check interface
location interface (cloud geography)
API trangulations interface
by Richard Rogers

35. kthxbai!
anne@digitalmethods.net
www.digitalmethods.net