
57System Control Points
the interface. For example, when a user edits his Google Drive document, the
script running inside his browser uses certain APIs to talk to the server. Just
like the interfaces we discussed earlier in the book, the software interface
allows for a different pace of innovation on either side of that interface.
Google Drive is an integrated, relatively secure system and it does not
give developers a lot of free access to user-generated content. By contrast,
Facebook represents an example of an Internet-based system designed with
the explicit goal to provide APIs for sharing user data with third-party appli-
cations. In May ...