So, you’ve built the basic resources developers will need to use your API or platform—are you done yet? Probably not. As we discussed in Chapter 8, driving developers through the funnel and helping them to become aware, proficient, engaged, and successful using your API is an ongoing process. Even well-adopted APIs, such as the most commonly used ones provided by Amazon and Google, require ongoing activity by their developer relations teams. Developer programs are the heart and soul of everyday developer relations and ecosystem building for an API.
Defining Your Developer Programs
Developer programs are activities that help and drive developers of all sizes to build solutions and integrate with your API. Most companies offer multiple developer programs through their developer relations and marketing teams. To define the developer programs that you need to run, you need to perform a breadth and depth analysis.
Breadth and Depth Analysis
Most developer ecosystems are composed of a few big players and a lot of midsize and small players, as illustrated in Figure 10-1. Consider the following about the mobile ecosystem: you have a few big mobile app developers—Uber, Lyft, Facebook, Supercell, and so forth—as well as many, many other app developers working in smaller companies building mobile apps.
Figure 10-1. Developer tiers
Developers (and hence developer ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
