Yesterday, the quintessential online ad resource BannerBlog featured two ads for Smart. Both pulled dynamic data — weather and maps — to build a display ad unit. I could be wrong, but the data source was probably some sort of API. For those not so versed in acronyms, Wikipedia to the rescue:

An application programming interface (API) is an interface that a software program implements in order to allow other software to interact with it; much in the same way that software might implement a user interface in order to allow humans to interact with it.

Flickr Mosaic: Crayonbox, constructed with Flickr API. Released under a CCommons license by krazydad

Like digital bridges, API’s request standartized information from public (and sometimes private) web services. From USA Spending to Fedex tracking, from Flickr to Google Maps, the interest for APIs has been traditionally confined to B2B/ERP and the Social Web. But lately the concept is extending beyond these areas: with developers creating exciting and unexpected uses with the new data available, and with consumer brands and the ad industry starting to let go of their closed silos, in essence “letting one thousand flowers bloom“.  A good consumer brand example of this trend is the UK grocery chain Tesco, who announced a new API at TechForTesco and invited developers to tinker with its data, search for nutrition facts or send ‘ideas’ to the customer’s ‘ideas inbox’.

Web development frameworks have long been using these large building blocks to enable rapid development by a larger interested audience. They not only ignite the engine of innovation, sometimes stalled by internal corporate politics, but also allow brands to have a comfortable degree of control. With new data sets available, we could start thinking of new kinds of mashups, such as business data built directly into communication solutions, CRM programs feeding custom content or display ads with real-time data, as mentioned in the beginning.

Before a brand dips into this space, it’s challenge is to question which data set respects legal and privacy issues, while at the same time being interesting enough for developers and consumers to act upon.   What they shouldn’t be asking is if an API is useful (it’s useful when the data is right).

If you’d like to know more about what’s being done with such web services, I highly recommend checking out the website Programmable Web.  It’s a useful resource with over 1500 APIs that have been used in thousands of mashups.

Not Fab from fabulous, but rather Fab from making and using fabbers, machines that can make almost anything, by printing three dimensional objects.

From commercial to the more open-source hardware and software solutions at Fab@home, these machines will enable people to download and print objects, experimenting with shared projects and try out new materials. Fabber owners improve these models and share physical objects with other fabbers, with the same enthusiasm as the pioneers of open source movement.

The wave of innovation brought by Web 2.0 technologies, with a sustainable co-creation by thousands of users, is now expanding to the physical world. The signs are there: from hacker (in the creative sense) communities like Make, Instructables or the more neo-Craftsy website Etsy.com, people are getting more comfortable with the idea of building something with their own hands. It’s about feeling empowered, the hands-on experience of building something, appealing not only to our darwinian survival skills but also have a bit of science fiction premonition (remember Luke Skywalker building C3PO as a young kid?). Yes, because even young kids are starting to love the tinkering, as shown on this TED Talk by Gever Tulley.

If all this seems futuristic to you, just try to imagine how IKEA will look in a decade: instead of boxed items, dozens of 3d printers are available at the cashier. You just take the blueprints and super fast hardware will print that out. Or even better: for smaller items, you just download the schematic at IKEA Fab Store and print them at home.

Yes, it seems far fetched. But so did Augmented Reality a decade ago. I just hope the media won’t hype Fab as much as they did with AR. Universal manufacturing is something that could change society in unexpected ways, the same way Internet did, by redefining industries and democratizing innovation. It comes nonetheless with a new set of dilemmas, such as the degree of experimentation or control of outputs.

As for companies, they’d better start thinking how their old models of patents stand up to this new paradigm, with a product’s life cycle being dramatically redefined. And, who knows, maybe even involve the consumers in true User Generated Products.