Interconnected Big Data World: API Services Marketplaces

A feature of the data-driven modern world is different companies (e.g.; Walgreens, BestBuy) and web properties (e.g.; eBay) offering access to their data and services via API (application programming interface).

In some part an ingenious crowdsourcing ploy and more broadly having the effect of enmeshing even more deeply the interconnected data world, API access requires a lot of coordination.

A new market segment, API management services, has sprung up to facilitate both public and private (white-label) access. Some of the leading companies in the segment include: Mashape, the cloud API platform, offering developer access to hundreds of APIs, Mashery (acquired by Intel in April 2013), an API network with standardized and richly-documented access to over 50 APIs, and Apigee, a leading provider of API services for enterprises and developers. Other related companies include 3scale, WebServius, and Layer 7 Technologies. A related company Zapier enables task-automation between online services like Salesforce, Basecamp, and Gmail.

API management services are growing marketplaces for the management, distribution, and consumption of APIs. Developers gain the ability to have a standard interface for quickly accessing and working with data from hundreds of sources. Web properties and corporations gain a standardized and outsourced management solution to coordinate external developer interactions and extend their ecosystems.

Human Microbiome: Futurist Augmentation Platform

The human microbiome is essential in working symbiotically with the human (and indeed all animals) for nutrient synthesis and pathology prevention. However, the large numbers of microbial populations are complicated and dynamic which makes it challenging to profile their activity and construct meaningful interventions. The 14th Annual Microbiology Student Symposium, held at UC Berkeley on April13, 2013 addressed some of these issues (conference program). 

There is tremendous microbiomic variation between individuals – a person’s gut microbiomic signature is perhaps as uniquely distinguishable as a fingerprint. There may be variability within the individual too, but there is a strong trend to persistent populations over time. The microbiome adjusts quickly to dietary and environmental change, within a day, and can shift back just as quickly. If certain populations are wiped out, other substitute species within the same taxa or phylum may emerge to (supposedly) fulfill a similar function. Pathology conditions like Crohn’s disease, colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS, IBD) are likely to mean the dysbiosis (e.g.; microbial imbalance) of the whole biosystem (not just are certain disease-related bacterial populations elevated, but mitigating populations may be much lower. Given the complexity of the microbiome with thousands of species across tax and phyla, machine learning techniques may be useful in combining a series of weak signals into a prognostication as the SLiME Project in the Eric Alm lab at MIT has done, claiming to predict IBD as accurately as other non-invasive methods.

In the longer term, the microbiome could be the perfect platform for many different less-invasive augmentations for the human - bringing on board micro-connectivity, memory, processing, and electronic storage (Google Gut Glass?), with applications such as real-time life-tracking and quantified-self monitoring and intervention.

Consumer Products go Social: from Shelf-Buy to Ongoing Dialogue

With the modern expectation of a social layer for everything, together with real-time feedback, data infographics, personalized recommendations, and gamification fun and reward, all received ambiently on the Pebble watch (the smartwatch is the new platform), consumer product delivery is being revolutionized.

Just as new media crippled juggernaut industry business models in computing, email, newspapers, TV, and music distribution, an even more fundamental shift is coming to consumer products. The successful game is transitioning from a one-off shelf-buy to an ongoing dialogue with consumers, providing a consumer product service.

One way this could be facilitated is by delivering preventive wellness/peak health enhancement services (“condition-as-a-service”) at the growing number of in-store clinics (à la WalMart Vison Centers) at drugstores (CVS, Walgreens) and high-end food stores (e.g.; Whole Food’s Wellness Club). How soon is the Whole Body and Whole Mind’s Neurofeedback Demo and Service Purchase coming along with Whole Food’s in-store destination edutainment sommelier training?

Microcommunication: high-valence minicontent bursts

Micro is not just for microformats, hardware miniaturization, microexpressions, micropractices, and political microtargeting, it can be a concept and a platform. One use is in the new concept of microcommunications.

Microcommunications are very small communications, possibly carrying a burst of high-valence content, emotional or otherwise. Conceptually, the next node smaller than tweets, microcommunications are ultra-lightweight, where no response is required but could be two-way chatted. One reason that microcommunications are more light-weight is because they are coming from a personified virtual coach as opposed to a real person. An example of microcommunications is in Figure 1, light-weight SMS messages from a Siri-2.0-like personal virtual coach used in the DIYgenomics Social Intelligence Genomics & Empathy-Building study.

Microcommunications from the empathy-building module are displayed. A range of other applications are currently in design, modules for developing and enhancing mindsets of leadership, charisma, motivation, influence, and gratitude.

Figure 1. Empathy-building Microcommunications from your Personal Virtual Coach. (Source: DIYgenomics Social Intelligence Genomics & Empathy-Building Study)