Designing websites with "open world" as standard

Everyone says that the internet is an open world, and it is true that you are free to access information on the Internet almost without restriction. But with the development of the Internet, more and more Web sites require users to register and then use, so, in order to enter the different sites, we need to keep going to register, and then enter the site to get what we need, perhaps the data content, perhaps the exchange with friends. But the problem is that websites and sites have little communication channels between each other, and you can't easily move from one site to another unless you discard everything on that site.

If the internet is the sea, the vast number of sites is the ocean in a small island, these small islands dotted, there is no link between the bridge.

Web 2.0 has changed everything.

This closed situation has changed gradually with the rise of Web 2.0. Web 2.0, a new era of "user-created content, User Content", generates a lot of information every day. Over time, the information began to flow slowly.

Google Mail Checker, it is not Google's official production, but it can accurately remind you of new mail. This is a classic example of using the open API to receive complex data.

RSS is just the beginning

The rise of the blog is a sign of the beginning of web2.0, as the blog came to the public, is RSS, this is a convenient access to other Web content technology, through RSS, you no longer need to open a Web site, on the contrary, an RSS aggregation software can be all you are interested in the content pushed to your eyes. This is a very big step compared to the previous pattern of linking.

But RSS also has its limitations, one is relatively simple content, and then you can only passively accept the content, if you want to do something about the content, or more troublesome, which greatly limits the user and the initiative of the site.

Read-only, writable, Open API Magic

So, something new came up. Some websites, in order to enhance the user stickiness and active degree, has released the website to be possible to carry on the content to operate outside the website the method. Considering the scalability and operability of these methods, most of the methods are programmable. The Open API is the name of the new thing. The most active users of the Internet, "technology developers", are the first adopters who use these programmable interfaces to develop applications that are independent of the web and then available to ordinary users. This method soon became popular. Because more and more Web sites are open to their applications, some programs can even assemble many different kinds of web sites at the same time. Allows users to operate different sites in just one place.

If RSS is watching movies, the open API is playing games.

(Starting to get to the point ...) ）

Richer read-only information

With the open API, we can get richer content than the RSS content of the past, such as Gmail API can provide you with email information and contact information, Facebook's open graph provides you with the information of friends, these content is complex format, information, the use of a wider range.

Single message.

You may have used emails to remind you of gadgets like this

Multiple information.

The recent foursquare of the fire gives us another example of the use of information. When you check in at a certain place, Foursquare will also provide you with information about the place, such as the restaurant nearby, what happened in history. All of this information comes from different websites, but you can just open the Foursquare application to see it once.

Comprehensive processing of a variety of information.

Siri shows another use of the message, a software called "Your personal Butler" that gives you the information you want with just one word. Like you said you wanted to eat lobster in Boston, the service mechanism behind Siri immediately looks for Boston and lobster-related content from all of its data sources, selects the most suitable dish after identifying the good restaurant, and then directly gives you a place to return the information to you. The process sounds complicated, but users who use Siri do not feel that he is simply getting information and then deciding whether to pay.

The interactive mechanism of modern website

In addition to obtaining information, interaction between Web sites has become active because of the open API. Twitter allows you to send messages elsewhere, and Facebook lets you add content from other sites to Facebook via a small "like" button. and "Connect with everyone" such a button more and more appear in our sight, let us use an account can walk the world.

Push the contents of a Web site to another site.

Now everyone can see the various recommendation buttons (this site article also has-_-) is the example of this model. Users can simply click on a button to send the content of a Web site to another site he has registered. For example, click the "recommended to Watercress" button below this article, your best friend can see you in the recommendation of this article.

Enrich the content of your website with the help of other websites.

Waze is a site based on real-world traffic conditions to provide free navigation services. All of its data comes from the user. To make it easier for users to submit data, Waze uses the public interface of Facebook and Twitter. Users can post information to Facebook or Twitter, and then Waze the data from both sites to their database. With this interface, users can publish information without having to log in to Waze. And Facebook or Twitter's huge number of users will undoubtedly help Waze grow.

Log on to a different website and share the data directly using one of the website's accounts

There is a previously called open ID of something, you register there, you can use this account to log on to other sites. The open API now builds on this. Not only can you log on to a different Web site with a single site account, you can also share data between the two sites. For example, you can log on to the mop net with Renren's account, and then notice that some of the information is shared between the two sites, such as your avatar in Renren.

Comprehensive use of multiple Web services

Check.in provides us with a new idea that users can use several different Web sites on a website. The recent LBS epidemic has sprung up on a variety of location-based sites. Check.in did not do lbs service, instead they saw all these sites need to do an action: check in, so they provide unified check in service, when you go to a new place, do not need to open Foursquare, also do not need to open Gowalla, As long as you log in to Check.in, you can complete the check in Foursquare and Gowalla actions. At present check.in support to operate 5 different websites at the same time, real one key to fix.

The latest coolest high fusion.

Finally this is a bit interesting. Amazon recently released their new recommendation system: By connecting to the user's Facebook account to get the user's data and the user's friend's data, and then based on the data to recommend the right product to you, or to recommend to your friends of goods. The essence of this is that Amazon will analyze some of your Facebook operations and your data, find out what you're interested in, and then find the best match for your interests in your own library. This process also applies to the recommendation of a gift to a friend. Amazon, meanwhile, is strictly following Facebook's rules that some users ' privacy settings don't allow them to view certain content, and Amazon can't get the data from those users.

Why is the open API so popular?

From the perspective of one side of the Open API. Obviously, these sites get more exposure, not to mention in the early days of this new era, the media will seize you, in the long run, more and more sites in order to enrich their applications will look for the open API, which will bring you potential users and even benefits. Let's look at the international booking system for backpackers, where data is collected from the public, and once a user chooses a hotel, it is directed to a specific hotel reservation site. Once the user completes the transaction, the benefit comes from your open API. (I've booked several hotels through this system, and, uh, I'm a contributor to the Open API-_-)

From the point of view of the side using the Open API. These free data are probably the driving force behind your site. Take Siri for example (their data is not entirely free) and the site is based on collecting and analyzing other people's data. Without this data, Siri does not exist at all.

Design your website with the "open World" standard

Given so many examples, I believe you have a general understanding of the Open API. If you don't want your site to be an island, consider how to use the open API, and, of course, go further and expose your own APIs.

The open Internet ultimately requires an open Web site. When more and more websites join this "open" trend, if your site is still holding a closed mind, it is too Altman. Some websites tend to provide all the services to users, and this idea will eventually overwhelm you. The comprehensive use of the power you can use, and timely to add your influence to the vast world of the Internet, is the way to success.