The WebAfrica API
16 Apr 2007
Our so-far-only Google Summer of Code-r Charl van Niekerk noticed The WebAfrica API, which also has an official announcement on their web site, which starts:
We are proud to announce the immediate availability of our newest offering: The Web Africa API. This affords developers and advanced users the ability to directly, safely and quickly automate access to the various services and facilities we provide.
Contrast this to the co.za registry, which still relies on a plain-text application form (and an "update form generator") sent in via email and, at best, screen-scraping to figure out how things are going. And no credit card facility. So, no reliable way for someone to create management tools to manage domains. I want a .org domain, and it takes me a minute and I know it is all dealt with (and I can buy the domain for multiple years). I want a .co.za domain, and I have to download their application form, fill it in using a text editor, and then email it. No verification possible on my side that I filled it in correctly - any problems will be picked up only on their side, and then manual intervention is necessary.
Contrast this with the smartcard/decoder marriage by South Africa's only licensed digital TV provider - preventing people from using whatever means they see fit to view the content that they've paid money to be able to view.
I guess the point really is - treat your customers as intelligent beings (and certainly not as potential criminals out to steal your content), and realise that their creativity is likely to end up creating much more than you could do alone. If you have customers that come to care enough about your business to develop functionality for it, they'll probably contribute to make your business much better. They'll be a constant source of quality feature requests and bug reports.
As Creating Passionate Users has taught me - your key message shouldn't be "we kick ass", but rather "we help you kick ass".
If WebAfrica helps their customers kick ass more than other ISPs help their customers to kick ass, WebAfrica's customers will succeed more, will promote WebAfrica more, and are less likely to move to another ISP. Their competitors will have less successful (and thus lower-paying) customers, will have less word-of-mouth references, and more churn. (All assuming that WebAfrica doesn't fail in other ways, of course.)
1 Responses
Jacques Marneweck — April 18, 2007 at 08:19 PM.
If they had an API back then, it would have been a lot easier to have integrated with, and would not have broken when they would occasionally change their horrific HTML and authentication system to login to that system.
Have your say