One of the major storylines of the Web’s current boom is that many tech companies open up their APIs. This in turn gets many entrepreneurs excited because we realize that we can get an application or feature from concept to reality much more easily than we could otherwise.
Of course, the problem here is that said tech company can also turn off an API. That is what Google did today.
Incidentally, when I thought of MetaMojo.com, I used Yahoo!’s search API but quickly realized it was foolish to do so, so we then swapped out Yahoo! for our own index and database.
This was a case of going against the grain: a successful VC advised me against it, saying we should use Yahoo!’s API and work on add-on’s. I thought that might be foolish as we might one day end up with the coolest add-on’s that have nothing to add to.
We also used our search platform to create a video meta search. All to say, this should be a lesson to any entrepreneur looking to build a company on another company’s API. Use it to test your idea, but don’t think it’s a smart long term idea.
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