When to decide to design an api?
when to say: **right now i have to create an api** (for my app or website)

for example my cousin has created [ctrl-news][1] which is a semantic search engine and started thinking right away about creating an api, i don't like to judge but i don't think that many people would be interested in semantic search engines, well for me, google is the only search engine i need, but i respect the semantic programmers. so i don't think his site have big traffic.

on the other hand, [Alfa][2] and [MTC][3] who are big telecom companies in my country don't have a public api, (2 months ago I emailed alfa asking about a public api because i wanted to create a chrome plugin, they just didn't reply :P )

So really, when is a good time to create an api? some guys say that you have to create an api even before you launch your website...

why? for example me and my friend have created [musicville][4] on the average day the site have 2500 visitors, and i can't find any reason to create an api, the site is good as it is, to be realistic, how many people would really want to use our api? we're not facebook!

**AND IF YOU REALLY HAVE TO CREATE AN API, WOULD YOU USE GRAPH API?**

facebook is using it, google started using it, it seems that everyone is going to start using it, and that soap and rest api will be dead soon

  [1]: http://www.ctrl-news.com
  [2]: http://www.alfa.com.lb
  [3]: http://mtctouch.com.lb/
  [4]: http://musicville.fm
When to decide to design an api?
===

when to say: **right now i have to create an api** (for my app or website)

for example my cousin has created [ctrl-news][1] which is a semantic search engine and started thinking right away about creating an api, i don't like to judge but i don't think that many people would be interested in semantic search engines, well for me, google is the only search engine i need, but i respect the semantic programmers. so i don't think his site have big traffic.

on the other hand, [Alfa][2] and [MTC][3] who are big telecom companies in my country don't have a public api, (2 months ago I emailed alfa asking about a public api because i wanted to create a chrome plugin, they just didn't reply :P )

So really, when is a good time to create an api? some guys say that you have to create an api even before you launch your website...

why? for example me and my friend have created [musicville][4] on the average day the site have 2500 visitors, and i can't find any reason to create an api, the site is good as it is, to be realistic, how many people would really want to use our api? we're not facebook!

**AND IF YOU REALLY HAVE TO CREATE AN API, WOULD YOU USE GRAPH API?**

facebook is using it, google started using it, it seems that everyone is going to start using it, and that soap and rest api will be dead soon

  [1]: http://www.ctrl-news.com
  [2]: http://www.alfa.com.lb
  [3]: http://mtctouch.com.lb/
  [4]: http://musicville.fm