New APIs From Meebo And Pownce

Everyone’s talking about APIs these days.

The developer world loves ‘em. They eat them up like luscious treats of godly goodness. After they finish their celebratory cheers and siphon those lasts few sips from them party kegs, they plant themselves before their screens and pore over the releases’ particulars to determine how good the kits are (whether they’re offer up enough info to enable some really nifty and powerful third-party stuff, whether they’re “open” enough, etc., etc). And then they eventually get down to work, make lovely things with what they’ve been given.

Well, it’s time to get that finely-aged witbier flowing once again, as two messaging services just in the last several hours or so announced the release of respective APIs. Which services, you ask? A little San Franciscan outfit called Pownce, and an instant messaging-specific, multi-protocol-friendly Web-based invention (say that five times fast, eh?) known as Meebo. (Also a native of SF, California.)

It’s true. Within the past twenty-four hours, both Pownce and Meebo have brought to the fore some much-anticipated APIs, and both are receiving quite a bit of attention in the blogosphere. For good reason? That’s up to you to decide. We’ll just tell you what they’re about.

Starting with Meebo. (Why? Don’t know. Maybe because it’s longer-lived, or that the letter ‘M’ comes before the letter ‘P’ in the English alphabet. Your choice.)

Meebo is a wonderful invention, no doubt. It’s served its usership very well over the course of its history, and so it rightly receives a good deal of praise and attention from thousands upon thousands – perhaps even millions – of people around the world. Sure, its popularity has very obviously resulted from the boom in instant messaging that’s occurred over the course of the past decade, but nonetheless, one can’t discount the fact that it’s served its purpose quite well.

And it will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Yesterday, Meebo Platform was launched, enabling third parties the ability to create applications atop its now-multi-planar communications system. Why multi-planar?

Well, Meebo has for a good while been strictly a text-specific instant messaging utility. Yesterday, however, the company let it be known its establishment of new partnerships with the four other companies, all of which offer unique and useful services atop Meebo’s own. They are: Tokbox (Web-based video chat), Talkshoe (conference calls), Ustream (“lifecasting”; think Justin.TV), and Pudding Media (VoIP solution).

Furthermore, Meebo is having a sort of “open-door developer day” on November 22nd at their offices, in order for developers too get to know the Meebo team better and share their applications and ideas for integration with Meebo Platform.

Good news, eh? We think so. After all, it’s nice to expand one’s horizons once in a while.

Now onto Pownce’s announcement.

It’s been several months since Leah Culver, Kevin Rose and company let it be known that an API would arrive. Now it’s here.

Whether it proves to be a hit is anyone’s guess, however. The API comes just in advance of Pownce’s seemingly inevitable transfer to the virtual compost heap. According to Duncan Riley of TechCrunch, Pownce has gone from a peak in uberpopulardom back in late June - where it proceeded to (excessively) tout its better-than-Twitter self to the world with a supremely cocksure attitude – to an almost sudden drop in traffic by the time of autumn’s arrival.

How big a drop? According to numbers garnered from Compete and Alexa, a drastic 80% decline. Eighty percent! Riley pins the blame for the dive on the lack of an API and a bug-ridden Adobe AIR-based desktop client, a diagnosis which I’m thinking is spot-on, to say the least.

Surely Pownce won’t be shelved by the end of the year (or early in the next), even with the immense drop in activity it’s charted, but whether it’s capable of rebounding is likely up to third parties to decide.

I think it’s about time to rip off Letterman and his Late Show: “Will it float?” (Or will it sink?)

To our developer readers: Enjoy the APIs! Hope to see some nifty (bleep) very soon!