News APIs are mostly used for searching and retrieving news articles from the internet. These APIs are used by news companies, organizations or even individuals and can help you answer questions such as;
1. Which top article is CNN running right now?
2. Has my product being reviewed or featured on any blog post today?
3. Which news articles have been published about News APIs today?
The above are just examples of questions that most News APIs can answer. Media companies can use these APIs to get on top of trending news and items, or rather to get to know about recent and new events happening. This information is very important to the success of these companies. It, therefore, means that they will try to get the best news APIs that do the job without any compromise.
Guidelines for Building User-Friendly News APIs
Building and maintaining high quality and user-friendly APIs make it easy for developers to implement your API in innovative ways. However, some developers relegate APIs to an afterthought of development forgetting that an API is a valuable entry point for customers to a media company. The development and maintenance of a News API should, therefore, be treated with the same importance that goes into the design and development of your main application.
– 1. Consistency
When building a News API, it is important to keep all the aspects of the API as consistent as possible. This, in return, will reduce the amount of time that a developer needs to spend learning how the API works to implement a specific task. For example, if your News API allows users to fetch news articles and categorize them into different categories, you are supposed to make the API requests between the two tasks consistent. If you are using XML to query the news articles, then you should not require JSON to categorize them.
– 2. Informative News APIs
The News API will be used by media companies or even other organizations and individuals to build applications that meet their requirements. This means that it is important to provide these users with as much information about the News API as possible. It will make it easy for them to create amazing experiences on top of your News API. The News API will often be judged by the performance of the applications that use it. Therefore, giving the users all the information that they need will add to their chances of success, which, in return, will mean that your News API is also successful. A user-friendly News API should also have a clean documentation to guide the API users when implementing it.
– 3. Handling News API Changes
Due to changes in the requirements of News API users, the API is more likely to have changes or updates with time. Things such as the News API features, its functionality, or even the data stored by the API can all change with time especially when the requirements of the News API users change. When this happens, you should embrace the changes and new features to accommodate the new requirements. A News API filled with amazing features is more likely to be considered by developers for implementation.
However, when adding the new features, you are supposed to take a lot of care when it comes to the existing version of the News API and its users. You should add the new features in a way that the existing News API users can still use the API even without the new features if they choose to. You can implement versioning to take care of this.
– 4. Safety
Safety is one of the most important things when it comes to the Internet of Things. Almost all gadgets are connected with each other and share a lot of data through the use of APIs. When building a News API, it is very important to ensure that you have carefully designed entry points and permissions that can set all the applications using your News API for success. Although it is not easy to ensure that every other application connecting to your News API handles its security aspects well, your design with respect to security can help in making sure that they are at least secure.
You can also do this by;
– Requiring all the News API requests to be sent on an encrypted connection.
– Enforcing a high-level security authentication scheme.
– Making sure that you have implemented permissions for the News API within the applications user area.
If you follow these guidelines when building your News API, you can be guaranteed that your News API will be more user friendly and easy to use compared to others.
