Expose Netflix metadata and services to the public developer community to "let 1,000 flowers bloom". That community will build rich and exciting new tools and services to improve the value of Netflix to our customers.The concept of 1,000 flowers refers tkinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.comargeting with the API, where ideas and applications would flower from each developer. Fast forward a couple years, and the API has been successful, with growth looking something like this: However the innovation did not come from where the original charter identified. The API delivered the greatest value from these groups (in order of importance):
- Internal Engineering Teams
- Netflix Product Owners
- Netflix Developers
- Partner Relationships
- External Device Manufacturers
- Public Developer Community
- 1,000 Flowers kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com
Build and maintain an infinitely scalable data distribution pipeline for getting metadata and services from internal Netflix systems to streaming client apps on all platforms in the format and / or deliver method that is most optimal for each app and platform.And moving forward, any future architecture will focus on supporting the key target audience first with a trickle down of features to the other audience segments. Key lessons you can take away from the Netflix API deployment:
- Understand the target audience of your API
- Design for your most critical audiences first
- Internalize the API as part of your companies engineering DNA
- if you build a public API, make sure and help them bloom
(Thanks to Daniel Jacobson for the images and material from his Mashery presentation)
Related articles
- Open vs. Closed APIs (apievangelist.com)
- Netflix API Review (apievangelist.com)
- Mashery - Evolution of Distribution (apievangelist.com)