Dataslots not API's?

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 17:50:04 +0100

Okay so a problem I've been mulling for a few months now goes to the heart of a sort of evolution of the internet which is the prevalence of Web2.0 API's. It seems everyone is racing to build API's for this and that.

Where API's make clear sense to me is stateless lookup services. Google Maps for example, I can totally see why I want the ability to get maps for locations and directions between them. No problem there. But where API's make less sense to me is when things get personal.

For example I don't want Amazon to give me an API to lookup information about my book purchasing history with them. Or the Four Seasons to give me an API to update my room preferences. Or anything which is really about me.

The way I look at it API's are functional. The vendor says "These are the things I bless you to do." But those things may be considerably less than what is possible if I have access to the data. Data is king!

Right now of course the point is moot since most people don't have anywhere sensible to put this stuff. But what if you did? What if you had your own, secure, personal information store where this and all the other sundry information about you could live happily?

What data-mashups might be possible then?

I've been callilng this idea Dataslots as an alternative to API's. A Dataslot then is a named, opaque, store where an organisation can put a sanitized version of the information belonging to me and keep it up to date. I may have many such slots (and accumulate more and more over time).

Services are then enabled by aggregating information from one or more of my slots (and combining with other services via API's where appropriate).

The result is services which are personal, not functional.

Am I crazy?

Curiouser and Curiouser! on data-slots

Dataslots not API's?