Finally something fun! Application Programming Interface (API) is the way to connect different systems with each other. Is it plug and play as in you just click and it's done? No way. 99% of all API’s require programming and setups.
But in the end, an API is like a url that you can see in the browser, all those ?yes=1&no=2 etc actually means something (REST/HTTP). Without going in to more technical details, API’s are also products.
There are tons of API’s you can subscribe to which you can get all sorts of information from: currency exchange rates, stock prices, vendor prices, images, content, company info — you name it.
What’s really good about API’s is that you can make them secure by using passwords (keys) which means the sending is encrypted and protected.
You can monitor them and you can scope them, which means you can get what you need and ignore the rest. This is a huge step away from how it was back in the days.
CSV-files containing data was uploaded to ftp-servers or databases was directly connected to each other.
Read more in "The CTO Playbook" available on Amazon/Kindle.
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