Before we dive into the quickest ways to incorporate some of the most popular APIs, let's first define what an API is.
An API (application programming interface) is a set of protocols, tools, and subroutine definitions for building applications and software.
The basic purpose of an API is to perform complex functions at a quarter of the time and effort typically needed.
Here's a real-life example, consider the electricity supplied to your apartment, house, or other dwellings.
To use electric appliances, all you need to do is plug it into a socket, and BAM! It starts working.
You don’t need to wire the appliance directly into the power supply, you just need to interact with the outlet to immediately get the electricity.
The outlet in the above example, is the API, it allows us to save tremendous time and needless complication, by offering an interface to interact with, and thereby simplifies the retrieval of desired results.
Generally, data is stored on a physical database server.
To access and fetch the desired data stored on a server, you must know the query terms and the structure of a database.
That’s where an API comes in: it assists the user by receiving, processing, and answering the requests with the desired data to deliver some specific service or functionality.
There's undoubtedly hundreds of powerful APIs out there that uniquely align with your business needs, and could elevate your company to the next level.
Today however, we'll just be covering 4 very popular APIs that businesses very often need to operate, as well as the quickest ways to setup & utilize each respectively.
Stripe is one of the most widely used online payment processors for debit and credit cards.
It serves as a payment processor enabling your application to make financial transactions.
The general steps involved in integrating Stripe's API within your HTML payment form are as follows:
The Dropbox API lets users and developers access and use files in Dropbox.
It allows performing basic and advanced functionalities including text search, sharing and thumbnails.
The basic steps involved in integrating Dropbox API with your application are as follows:
Twitter API is a very useful interface, that allows you to perform all desired Twitter operations smoothly from your website or web app.
The basic steps to integrate Twitter's API with your application are as follows:
Slack is an emerging communication tool for businesses and offices everywhere.
It’s similar to other chat applications for business, with the key difference being it's superior extensibility features.
According to technology experts, Slack is going to dramatically change office communication in the near future.
The basic steps involved in integrating Slack API with your application are as follows:
API is a great way to boost your business and automate business operations.
For example, APIs enable us to minimize human intervention, and achieve secure & operational money transactions.
Web applications all around the world are relying more and more on these powerful APIs.
If you want to enhance your business by incorporating an API that uniquely matches your business needs, than look no further.
Looking to upgrade your business today? If so, let's get in touch.