<p>Adam DuVander speaks fluent "developer" while serving as Developer Communications Director. Previously, Adam wrote for Wired, Webmonkey and edited ProgrammableWeb, the leading resource for APIs.</p><p>Just a few years ago, application programming interfaces (APIs) were largely viewed as an easy, functional way to make applications work together, a digital adhesive of sorts. Today, the value of the API has evolved into much more than a simple bridging mechanism.</p><p>For many developers, APIs have become the foundational architecture that allows them to manifest their vision. Consider the Pareto Principle, which states that 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes; apps and cloud services already do 80 percent of what your application needs so leverage that ecosystem to focus in on the 20 percent of "magic" that you can call your own.A look back</p><p>As a term "API" has been around for a while, but the modern, Web-connection version gathered steam in the early 2000s thanks to Amazon's Store API. This allowed any Web property to have an Amazon presence on its site.</p><p><a href="http://thenextweb.com/dd/2014/03/28/api-economy/">Keep reading...</a></p>