Thanksgiving-16, Did you thank them?

As the thanksgiving is over, apparently, everyone had a great time with their family and friends, having some delicious food and probably… -

Thanksgiving-16, Did you thank them?

As the thanksgiving is over, apparently, everyone had a great time with their family and friends, having some delicious food and probably some of you got your hands all greasy while carving a turkey.

> Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action. ~W.J. Cameron

Yes, after a lot of thankful actions to every living being that I know, I thought, I should be thankful to a few folks, I enjoy interacting throughout the year.

Here you go-

A Really “BIG” Thank To — [Workboard](http://www.workboard.com/), [Google](https://developers.google.com/google-apps/calendar/), [Cloud Prediction](https://cloud.google.com/prediction/docs/), [Microsoft](https://dev.outlook.com/), [Amazon](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/API/Welcome.html), [Slack](https://api.slack.com/), [Stripe](https://stripe.com/docs/api), [Api.ai](https://api.ai/), [Mixpanel](https://mixpanel.com/help/reference/jql/api-reference), [Heap](https://heapanalytics.com/docs/heap-sql-overview), [Facebook](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/messenger-platform), [Box](https://developer.box.com/), [DropBox](https://www.dropbox.com/developers), [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/developer/), [Twitter](https://dev.twitter.com/rest/public), [Twilio](https://www.twilio.com/docs/), [IBM Watson](https://console.ng.bluemix.net/catalog/), …. and many other “Awesome” applications (List is really long, sorry if I miss anyone), which are trying really hard to make the cloud a better cloud by providing protocols and methods of application’s connectivity . Their effort in making data available and making platforms communicative is commendable. These platforms are transforming the industry with an adoption of innovative ways of working in an economy that is global, mobile and always connected. And they are grappling with how to evolve their platforms in new ways.

Back in 2010–11, working with [OSLC (Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration)](http://open-services.net/) for service management, I got an early opportunity to work on a project that was connecting independent software and applications to integrate their data and workflows in support of end-to-end life-cycle processes. To ensure coherence and integration, we were following OSLC Core specifications and sometimes, application’s workflow and data was not readily available. It was exciting, how those heterogeneous applications could talk to one another with a deep level of collaborations.

And it is still exciting when we scope these integrations across multiple platforms with the same vision of having our customers successful and less restrained because of the platforms.

With the great API’s support from these platforms, now you can always remain connected, irrespective of the application. For e.g., you can have your Google/Office 365 email content parsed, extract attachments/documents’ links and upload it to Box using Box’s SDK (it is even easier than you write your own implementation), create a meeting in Workboard if there is a meeting event or descriptor in the Gmail, notify about the meeting to its attendees in Slack, remind attendees with a text message using Twilio’s API and any other custom workflow. Conceivably, it can now be implemented with few clicks in Google and fewer lines of codes.

This approach is no exception if we talk about the social platforms. All social platforms are now connected and API rich. Now your Instagram’s share can run through multiple platforms varying from Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and any other platform with just one click. And it is possible because of their APIs’ support and them being fearless about the app’s integration.

With the industry transformation, this trend is bringing opportunities for companies like [Zapier](https://zapier.com/), [IFTTT](https://ifttt.com/), [Scribe](https://www.scribesoft.com/), and there are many other startups which are evolving every day. These companies are providing a seamless solution for extending their platform by leveraging these applications’ API. And it would not be wrong, if we say, a great part of their success is driven by the solution provider’s APIs’ support.

Today, we talk about IoT(Internet of things) every day and it is a part of this transformation. If your washing machine is able to text you a message about your laundry is done, it is all because your device/appliance’s native stack is able to invoke an application API’s call to deliver that text message. It is an interesting and evolving domain with the reach of IoT from car’s dashboard to your smart watches.

We talk a lot about Bots too. Bots are so successful because they can talk to an application with no manual intervention. Now a bot can send Workboard badges from Slack or can get an approval for Salesforce’s prospect, can place an Amazon order from the Facebook IM or browse EBay’s inventory in IM, can browse the restaurants in Google’s Allo and can update a cop’s location in Waze. Apart from its ability to digest the application interactions and getting smarter with its knowledge-base, Bots are actually making an API call, APIs’ call to the platform that you always want to access from one single platform.

> Without further ado, we should express our flavor of “Thanks” to these applications and appreciate their efforts in making of the connected cloud.

PS: I will publish my nodejs recipes about the integration as a part of my Thanksgiving-16 tradition ;)