Why is This Working?

Jay Ridgeway (switchabit, bit.ly) and I go back a ways. A handful of us spent a couple years of our life transitioning AOL away from it’s “old way” to the “new way” of doing (proprietary content hosting/infrastructure to modern web stuff). It was fun, and hard. Anyway… we were recently speculating as to why our stuff (gnip, bit.ly, switchabit) is getting so much traction (obviously we’re bias). Without going into some thesis-like blog post, the following paraphrased exchange took place:

Jud: the system is a mess right now

Jay: "we r making band aids and aspirin"

Truer words were never spoken. We’re in the midst of the larger system evolving through its “API phase.” APIs have sprouted up like weeds, and now folks are waking up to their lawns dying. Everyone has spent the last ~8 months talking about how to fix things, and our products are the first crack at tangible tools that are getting traction. To be fair, some big players have tossed “specs”, “frameworks”, and even more APIs into the mix in order to impact some change; helpful, but far from enough. We’re incrementally injecting framework fundamentals into the broader system; join us. Age old concepts applied to a growing ecosystem in need.

“Do, or do not. There is no ‘try.’” – Yoda