Large platforms are staring to take over the web and mobile internet. Platforms including Google, Facebook, Android and Twitter have their own application program interface (API) that have hundreds of millions or even billions of users. Small and medium companies can create their own networks and interfaces, or they can take advantage of these massive audiences to build-out additional features and services. Many companies choose the latter, using an API integration to quickly grow their user base.

Business in particular are very fond of using and API integration. If their goal is to get as many customers or users as possible, integration is usually the way to go. For example, companies with Facebook API integration can create a link on their landing page that allows users to log-in with their Facebook account. That greatly reduces friction of signing up for a new service and allows the site to quickly gain an immense amount of information about their new user.

One major API structure is representational state transfer (REST), or the RESTful API. This API focuses less on syntax and implementation with more of a focus on components, connectors, and data elements. The components are in standard media forms such as JSON, XML, Atom, or microformats. It also uses a standard URI across sites and standard HTTP methods to connect to the server. However, there is no official standard (unlike SOAP methods).

Folio1 is a leading custom web development platform. We help companies with API integration as well as a number of other development tasks. For more information, please contact us.