In a recent Ecommerce Developer webinar entitled “Plug-in, Cash Out: How to Effectively Build and Market Your Plugins,” it became obvious that the usefulness of an API really depends on how well conceived and documented it is.

The webinar featured Strands Recommender Vice President Jesus Pindado and Brian Getting, executive director at Terra Firma Design and Consulting, which has recently developed an ecommerce-related API.

The term API (application programming interface) is perhaps best defined as a set of standard requests that allow one system, platform, or script to communicate with another. An API describes how a web developer should format requests for a particular service. But many modern APIs actually go beyond providing a way...