218. Why Uber uses Google maps: introduction to APIs (encore)

Every time you see Login with Facebook or Pay with Paypal on an app, you’re seeing a tech tool called an API.

This tool allows companies to make millions of dollars, reach billions of people, and collect valuable data, if you use it strategically.

Listen to this episode to learn what APIs are and how smart business strategists use them.

This is a re-run of episode 37 of this podcast.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction and Podcast Review

04:19 APIs: The Interwoven Web of Software

08:38 Connecting Products and Services

09:36 Leveraging Code Snippets

12:02 The Importance of APIs

For more career & tech lessons, subscribe to Tech for Non-Techies on:

• Apple
• Spotify
• YouTube
• Amazon Podcasts
• Stitcher
• Pandora

Growth Through Innovation

If your organisation wants to drive revenue through innovation, book a call with us here.

Our workshops and innovation strategies have helped Constellation Brands, the Royal Bank of Canada and Oxford University.

Transcript

Sophia Matveeva (00:00.108)
Every time you see login with Facebook or pay with PayPal on an app, you are seeing a tech tool called an API. This clever tool allows companies to make millions of dollars, reach billions of people and collect valuable data, if you know how to use this tool strategically. Listen to this episode to learn what APIs are and how smart business strategists use them.

This is a rerun of episode 37 of the Tech for Non -Techies podcast. The early episodes of this show cover foundational tech concepts and demystify tech jargon, which is why if you're a non -techie, I highly recommend you go back and listen to it. Hello and welcome to Tech for Non -Techies, the only podcast that demystifies the fast growing technology sector. I'm your host, Sophia Madriaga, Chicago Beef MBA and tech entrepreneur.

My aim here is to give you the skills, knowledge and confidence to find opportunities in the tech sector, whether that's through founding a company, getting a dream job or bringing a fresh perspective to your work. Hello, smart people. Last week, I asked you to leave me some reviews for this podcast for my birthday and I got some wonderful ratings and reviews and I just wanted to read one which I love.

I'm heading up a music business and it's a digital startup. I'm new to the tech digital world and I need to learn fast. This podcast is exactly what I need. The content is excellent and I already learnt a lot. It's great to learn on podcast form two as opposed to reading or courses. I could stick my headphones on, go for a walk and learn at the same time. So first of all, thank you so much. comes, this is from

Bringing Tech to the Arts, that's what the reviewer has called themselves. So thank you so much, Bringing Tech to the Arts for this review. But also, I kind of feel like now I work in the music business, which basically makes me feel like I'm very, very cool. But the next thing I'm about to tell you is going to completely dispel any thoughts that I might be cool. But anyway, before I get on to the next thing, which is incredibly amusing.

Sophia Matveeva (02:23.822)
I would love it if you left me some podcast reviews. So podcast reviews really help other people find this podcast and spreads our mission to spread tech for non -techies. So what's the other thing? I mean, there will be learning content, but before I get there, I need to tell you about an innovative use of technology. So I've come across something called Cronk, Shul, Fold,

farm. so what this farm allows you to do, spice up your virtual meetings by inviting along a goat. Got an upcoming video call? Find out if your workmates, friends and family are paying attention by adding a goat. For only £5. For the bargain price of £5,

You can choose one of our goats to join you for five minutes of your video meeting. All proceeds go towards bulk buying Lural. That's amazing. And then on this website, there are pictures of goats that you can book. So goats on Zoom, people, this is what we have come to. A year of lockdown. We have gone completely mad, but I think it is bloody brilliant. So

Just Google Goats on Zoom, I'm assuming they're the only people offering the service. Sadly, they're not the sponsors of the show, but if Cronkitew Fold Farm want to get in touch about sponsoring any of the episodes, I would be very, happy. Anyway, so today, goats are not the only topic. They're just an example that technology is helping us to do all sorts of things.

and some of them are highly unexpected. Software is now a web which is interwoven into our world. And today I want to talk to you about a key concept that allows this to happen. And that concept is APIs. API stands for Application Programming Interface. You'll never use the full term, so you might as well forget it now. Just say API. That's what everybody asks.

Sophia Matveeva (04:49.838)
In a previous episode, I told you about the backend versus the frontend. If you haven't listened to it, then go back to episode 32 after this one. The concepts in that episode are foundational. But for the purposes of today, you just need to know that most apps and sites have a backend and a frontend. The backend is the foundation of your product and it's on the server side. So you'll often hear the words backend and server used interchangeably.

They're slightly different concepts but just remember that they're both on the backend. So in practice that means that you, a human or a goat, will never come across it. A server is a computer that only talks to computers. It's a snum like that. A frontend is the bit that you touch. So if you can poke it, if you can swipe it, if you can talk to it, then it is a frontend.

So a front end connects you, the human, to the server. So let's imagine that I'm sending you a message on WhatsApp. So I write a message on my phone. So I'm interacting with the front end when I'm doing that. Then I press send. And provided I'm connected to the internet, then the message leaves my phone. It leaves my phone's front end. And then it goes to the server. The server then captures my message.

works out that I'm sending it to you and pushes it out from the server to your front end. And all of this happens within the fraction of a second and across humongous distances. And when you actually stop to think about it, it is quite amazing. Human determination and ingenuity have made this possible. And it's one of the reasons I really love learning about technology and I'm awed by what humans can make.

and I'm excited that I can be part of it too and so can you. And we don't need to be coders to participate. So we can see from the example above that the server is kind of like the amazing brain in your application. But an amazing brain is a processing organ. And what do processing organs need? They need sensory organs to take in information and to give it out again.

Sophia Matveeva (07:13.398)
And that's exactly where APIs come in. So APIs are like the eyes and the ears and the mouth of the server. And the server is like the big smart brain that stores information and that gives out information. So in order for your server to talk to other servers and to front ends, it needs an API, just like I need to use my mouth to get this information out of my brain and into this podcast. So literally this

Is the Techbit done? You might want to listen to it again, but really the concepts are fairly simple. You might need to listen to it again if this is the first time you've come across them, but I promise you, you will get this in no time. So now, let's move on. So what makes this concept really exciting to me is not so much the Techbit, but the implications, because the technology...

for its own sake is not what we do here. Technology is a tool that allows us to do things, that allows us to solve problems. So what makes the concept of APIs really exciting to me is that APIs allow products and businesses to integrate with each other. APIs are just snippets of code that let you borrow another app's functionality or data within your product.

So for example, when you see Google Maps within the Uber app, that's an API. That's Google Maps, so Google is a different company to Uber, and that's a Google product within an Uber product. That happens via the API. Every time you see login with Apple or login with Facebook or login with Google, you are seeing an example of an API.

It's a bit of code from one product inside another product. And this shows just how interconnected our products are. Just have a look at most of the apps on your phone and you'll see that you can log in with Facebook and pay with PayPal or many of them. So really it's all interconnected. And obviously Facebook and PayPal are allowing this to happen. And in fact, they're encouraging this to happen. So why is that happening? So that's basically business strategy.

Sophia Matveeva (09:36.224)
APIs can help companies grow their user base, make more money and collect more data about user behavior. And they can also be really good for branding. So deciding what APIs your product should have open is therefore both a business and a technical decision. That's basically deciding which bits of your product, which snippets of code in your product are you going to allow other people to use within their product.

So because APIs are also part of a company's growth and branding strategies, companies treat them like products in themselves. And we do have a podcast episode on what is a product, but basically a product is a solution to a problem. So for example, log in with Facebook. When I'm doing that, I don't particularly care about Facebook. I care about logging into an app with just one click of my thumb.

So I'm using an API to solve my problem. And that means that this API is a product. So product is a solution to a people problem. Anyway, so getting back to APIs. So APIs are a tech concept, but actually it's a tech concept that is a really big part of business strategy. And speaking of business strategy, McKinsey, a fancy consultancy, estimates that $1 trillion in economic

profit globally could be up for grabs through the redistribution of revenues across sectors within ecosystems. Okay, I have no idea how they came up with that, but the point is that whether it's one trillion dollars that's up for grabs or just several billion dollars, it's a lot. A lot of value can be created by working out how to integrate products and brands with each other.

And this is why I really like the concept of APIs. At first glance, it's just a tech thing, but actually it's a business strategy thing. It is definitely not a concept to be left to the engineers alone, which is why I wanted to teach it to you, my smart listeners. So to solidify your knowledge, next time you open an app or a site, have a look at what product bits are in there.

Sophia Matveeva (12:02.606)
from other products. And if you're building something, have a think about how you could use APIs to grow. So what functionality are you building that could be useful to other products? How can you build APIs yourself within your product that help promote your brand? How can you build APIs to grow your user base? And why would the developers of other apps want to use them? Remember,

Here you are learning to think strategically in the digital age. This means learning tech concepts and applying them to make a business grow. You're not just learning tech concepts for the fun of it, unless you're really weird. And today you have learned a tech concept and you've seen how companies use this concept to make a lot of money. Isn't that awesome? Isn't this a great use of your time? So if you found this episode useful, go back to the

earliest episodes of this podcast, just literally just scroll down with your thumb and go back to the early episodes and learn more foundational tech concepts. This is high quality free education. And my dear smart person, if you are loving what you're learning, then please leave the show a rating and a review. It really does help me reach more smart people like you. And also it just makes me really happy.

So on that note, have a wonderful day and I shall be back in your delightful smart ears next week. Ciao!