Meeting Developer Demands for Your APIs

by | May 8, 2017 | Developer Outreach, Developer Population, Developer Relations, DevRelate |

It used to be that only a very few specialized software companies cared at all about developers – and usually because they were selling programming tools or platforms. Now every company needs to be connected and to work interactively with their clients, their partners, their suppliers, and their customers and to do that they publish APIs. Evans Data’s recently released Developer Program 2017 survey report found that formalized programs have become a necessity for companies wishing to have their APIs adopted.

DRPInfographic2017

Developer Programs and APIs

Your developer relations program needs to have close participation and cooperation with your engineering team in order to inform, educate, and support community members for the lifetime of your APIs. Your company’s success and your program’s support of developers depends on:

  • how you prepare for the release of  the APIs,
  • the types of technical content you create to support an API,
  • how you prepare community members for the impacts of API changes,
  • and how to help your community members get ready for API deprecation and shutting down of an API.

 

You and other members of your company might wonder what the eventually payoff will be for all of your hard work. A recent preliminary report on “The Impact of APIs on Firm Performance” by Boston University Questrom School of Business says that “firms adopting APIs see increases in sales, net income, market capitalization, and intangible assets. API use also predicts decreases in operating costs in some specifications.API adoption leads to a 12.7 percent increase in market capitalization”.

Ten years ago less than half of all developers were in a developer program. Today more than 80% belong to one and 62% of developers say they don’t use APIs that aren’t supported by a Developer Relations program. Evans Data’s recently released Developer Program 2017 survey report found that formalized programs have become a necessity for companies wishing to have their APIs adopted.

EDC_DRP_trend

 

“Today companies need to be interconnected and to take advantage new innovations. This often means they need to publish APIs and once you publish an API you have a platform. Once you have a platform you need developers, and that means you need a program to support them”, said Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans Data. “We see the proliferation of developer programs throughout all places and industries.”

The Developer Relations 2017 report is the 18th annual survey of developers focusing on developer relations programs. Topics include Developer program features, ROI and Program Measurement, Developer Outreach, Training, Spurring Participation, Resources, App Stores, Tech Support and Documentation.

View the complete Developer Relations 2017 report Table of Contents and Methodology.

What does your developer program provide to support your APIs?

Send me an email if you provide your developers with additional API information and how you handle API versioning, deprecation, and shutdown.

David I Facebook Avatar

David Intersimone “David I”
Vice President of Developer Communities
Evans Data Corporation
davidi@evansdata.com
Blog: https://www.devrelate.com/blog/
Skype: davidi99
Twitter: @davidi99
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidi99/

Developer Relations Tools of the Trade

by | Oct 12, 2016 | Developer Relations, Tools, Uncategorized |

I’m often asked about the different tools I use in my developer relations, chief evangelist, developer communities and developer cheerleader jobs. This blog post contains a list of some of the tools that I currently use. It is not meant to be a complete list of all possible developer relations tools nor is the list an advertisement or endorsement of tools. There are many additional tools that are available for all aspects of being a developer relations professional. Where possible, I have included links to additional tools that are available.

Developer Relations Tools I Use

I’ve divided up the tools I use into several categories grouped by functionality and features. There are many other choices for tools you will use in your developer relations job, for your program, for developer outreach, developer program marketing, etc.

 JeffGordon Nascar ToolBox Developer Relations Tools

 

Webinars, Meetings, Screencasts, Videos:

  • Online Webinars/Meetings/Conferences – GoToWebinar by Citrix (Windows, macOS, iOS/iPad), Facebook Live, YouTube Live. I’ve also used WebEx from time to time.
  • Screen Cast Capture, Editing and Rendering – Camtasia by TechSmith (Windows and macOS). My default settings for capturing, editing and rendering videos – MP4 format, 1920×1080 resolution, 3-5 fps for slides/code, 15-30 fps for full motion video/animations.
  • Broadcast video from my computer to multiple sites (Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Twitch and others) – Open Broadcaster Software (OBS)
  • Video Conversion – Miro Video Converter

 

Audio Editing/Enhancement:

 

Slides and Bitmaps

 

Social Media Management/Marketing Tools:

 

Documents/Blogs/Articles:

  • WordPress, Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, Windows Notepad

 

Upload/Download:

 

Social Sites (personal):

 

Social Sites (DevRelate):

 

Mind Mapping/Brainstorming:

 

Cloud Storage / FileSharing:

 

Alerts / Feeds / News:

 

Newsgroup Reader (NNTP protocol):

  • XanaNews (written in Embarcadero Delphi)

 

Developer Answers Sites:

 

Short URLs:

  • Bitly
  • Internal Evans Data app

 

Virtual Machine Software (for my MacBook Pro) for demos/appdev:

What Other Developer Relations Tools Do You Use

As I mentioned, the above is a list of the tools I use every day in my developer relations and evangelism job. If you use other tools, please send me an email with the other tools you use in your developer relations job.

David I.
davidi@evansdata.com