Observations on API and Mashup Management

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Birdwatching on Facebook: Eyeing API response and error rates for a social app

We spotted a great Facebook app in the wild.

Bird.im's Facebook app - apps.facebook.com/birdwatching - brings birdwatchers together to share and discuss their latest finds. 

This is a very well designed and full featured app - enabling sharing of bird photos, locations, discussions and connecting passionate enthusiasts with similar interests.   The Facebook platform at it's best.

The Birdwatching Facebook app provides an API for Facebook to consume when the user performs 'one-click' AJAX actions such as adding a bird, a country, or a photo for a spotting.  This streamlines entry creation by offering an alternative over a simple form and directly improves user engagement as users create and share more entries.   In the future, an iPhone app that enables entries from the field will also consume this API.

Hugo and the bird.im team (@birdim) use Apigee to measure API response rates and errors.  (see how Apigee calculates API response rates and API error rates in previous entries).

Thanks to Hugo for all the great feedback on our Apigee Feedback forum!