Todd Sampson

Google’s launch of the Social Graph has confirmed it for me — the API is becoming the product; or service as the case may be. And, if not the full product, at least the first wave of a product’s release.

Back in the day, and still today at many overly-large companies, there was the massive software application. Ideas were sold up the chain (or pushed down it) and appropriately massive budgets were allocated. Hundreds of beautiful interface mockups and user flow diagrams were constructed. Each artifact the team made was hung on the wall of the project War Room in a giant John Nashian nightmare. People on high made the call for what “the users” wanted in an [insert latests software buzzword here] application. Every contingency thought of and planned for — or so they thought. The classic, “Ready… Aim… Fire.”

Next came open source projects and Web (2.0) applications. Take a few months putting together the basic ideas, flesh out the user interface and release. Listen to what the users want and iterate frequently to give it to them. As they have been called, “Ready… Fire… Aim.” or the more extreme, “Fire… Fire… Fire.”

While I am a fan of launch & iterate, I think that Google is quietly perfecting the next-generation application development model. Forget the product guys. User interface — who needs one?!? We want the data. If our API offers enough value, everyone will use it. Developers get to build their *open* “standards-based” applications faster. Users get exactly what they want. After all, having a few dozen teams or more building on the infrastructure is sure to create something closer to each user’s ideal offering, right? Besides, as everyone know, there are always more smart people working outside your company than in it.

The new model as I see it, “Ready… Point to a Vision of the Future… Let others fight the war with you as the ammo supplier.”

I think it is brilliant. Let’s keep an eye on Google’s OpenSocial, Android, and Social Graph to see if it works as well as I am expecting.