Today the market is awash with options available for developers to consume content using the APIs. Some go as far as describing their offering as a CMS without the bad parts, where as some choose to provide content using a data centric API platform. All of this while the classic Content Management System players are opening up their core via APIs and modernising their technical platforms. Is there a silver bullet for Content APIs? Let's find out! Original presentation format available on Sway: https://sway.com/YIZfYDgcQyJwcmWI

1. Exploring
Content API
Options
Jani Tarvainen, 23.3.2016

2. About me
• Jani Tarvainen
• Fully Stuck Developer
• I do all kinds of things
• Current Corporate Affiliations
• PS Consultant at eZ Systems
• Principle Growth Hacker at Malloc Skunkworks
• Twitter: @velmu

3. Content APIs?
• A way of accessing pristine, unformatted Content via an API
• 99% of the time people think of JSON reads and REST
• Arguably a Content Marketing Buzz Byproduct
• If you've got a REST API you'll make money
• Content vs. Data
• Data is Collected
• Content is Created

4. Content and presentation decoupled
• This is new and awesome!
• Or is it?
• RSS Feeds and AJAX in 2005: http://www.nigelcrawley.co.uk/bbc/
• P.S. XML's not dead, it's different from JSON:
• <para>Go ahead and try to create <em>mark up</em> like this in <link
target=”123”>JSON</link></para>

5. So what are our options?

6. Data Platforms
• Some examples:
• Ruby Grape (Ruby): http://www.ruby-grape.org
• Spray (Scala): http://spray.io
• Nodal (JavaScript): http://www.nodaljs.com
• Maru (Elixir / Erlang): https://maru.readme.io
• API Platform (PHP): https://api-platform.com

7. API Platform usage demo (with
EasyAdminBundle)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ805S7rdFw

8. Data Platform Advantages
• Extremely flexible
• High performance
• Provide exactly what is needed
• 100% Control
• Can be used to aggregate Data and Content

9. Data Platform Disadvantages
• Content Management is a complex problem domain
• Very developer focused
• Crafting solutions to generic problems that Content API / CMS solves
• Stability of platform over 5-10 year span

10. Content Platform
• Examples
• Contentful: http://contentful.com/
• Box Content API: https://developers.box.com/content-api/
• Prismic: http://prismic.io/
• Medium API: https://medium.com/developers
• GatherContent: http://gathercontent.com

11. Contentful Usage Demo
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JITUIFLq2c

12. Content Platform Advantages
• Simplified content entry
• Simple to purchase and deploy
• Good developer APIs, SDKs and Documentation
• Scales globally without actions
• If the API does not work... you know who's to blame

13. Content Platform Disadvantages
• No control, features can be removed at any point
• Price can shoot up with large amounts of Content
• No tools for layout management
• Integrations (authentication, etc.) can be tricky
• You'll (probably) need to do layout management somewhere

14. Content Management System (CMS)
• Examples
• Craft CMS: http://craftcms.com
• Drupal: http://drupal.org/
• WordPress: http://wordpress.org/
• eZ Platform / Studio: http://ez.no/
• Plone: http://plone.org

15. eZ Studio API and Layout editing Demo
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIoGdyuiEnk

16. Content Management System Advantages
• Sitebuilding essentials: Content management, permissions, layout
management, etc..
• Tried and tested over decades
• Extensible and able to integrate
• Full control over installation (self hosted)

17. Content Management System Disadvantages
• Usability mileage varies
• Feature bloat: Forum, CRM, eCommerce...
• Can be old and crufty
• Development & hosting overhead (self hosted)
• Tempting to see everything as Content (vs. Data)

18. Conclusions
• Content Management is a melting pot of Content, Data and Control
• One size does not fit all
• Power is nothing without Control
• Don't over-engineer

19. Editor experience matters (Sway.com)
http://sway.com

20. The end
• Related Links:
• Exploring Content API Options (video and Sway Slides)
• The Content API Gold Rush
• Open Source and the Content Creation Experience
• Your CMS REST API should be WordPress Compatible
• Popular Symfony components used by CMSes
• Testing content editing with Sway