What is a writable API?

Question

I recently heard term 'Writable API' which is totally new for me. Can anyone explain what does it mean?

Answer 1

A publicly writable API is an API that allows anyone to attach meta-data to objects in the owner's database without changing the original content.

For example, take this object: http://twitter.com/#!/MarsPhoenix/status/1917793215. It is a tweet from the Pheonix Mars Lander.

The tweet is owned by Twitter. But what if I want to tag it and share those tags with the world?

If Twitter opened a writeble API, I could add my own data to this tweet. Say I add the tags "mars" and "nasa" to this object, they would be stored as devon/tag:mars and devon/tag:nasa in their database. If user Bob added a tag of "phoenix", it would be stored as bob/tag:phoenix in Twitter's database.

Now we can both share our tags with the world without overwriting any of Twitter's or each other's data.

Here is a good blog post explaining the concept:

http://blogs.fluidinfo.com/fluidinfo/2011/02/14/what-is-a-writable-api/

Answer 2

I wrote the article @Devon linked to, so agree with him :-) Though I'd change his "without changing the original content" to also say that the addition to the data also doesn't require the permission of the original app either (APIs are in a way largely about permission - they're designed to let you do things, but also sharply limit what you can do).

As a concrete illustration of @Devon's example of putting metadata onto tweets, here's how you can do it with Fluidinfo: http://blogs.fluidinfo.com/fluidinfo/2009/12/01/putting-metadata-onto-tweets-with-fluiddb/

We've also posted some writable API examples, for Boing Boing and Union Square Ventures. See http://blogs.fluidinfo.com/fluidinfo/2011/01/27/how-we-made-an-api-for-boingboing-in-an-evening/ and http://blogs.fluidinfo.com/fluidinfo/2011/02/15/how-i-made-a-writable-api-for-union-square-ventures-in-an-hour/

We have a couple more nice examples coming out this week at the LAUNCH conference in SF.

Hope that helps!

Terry Jones