All about API's

I truly adore going to tech meet-ups.  One of the meet-ups I went to last night was about mobile as this is one of my interests. Last night speaker was talking about API’s which I have heard about API’s but never knew how to use an API especially as it relates to mobile. Here are my few take a ways.

• What does API stand for? Application Programming Interface
• API is http based
• Why create API?  There are four reasons to create API which are:
• Have data to share
• Have functionality to offer
• Allows others to lead their customer to you
• Several ways to build API which are WCF data services(OData), ASP.NET web API, and Azure mobile services

      The speaker recommended not using SOAP/ASMX. I am not sure why but I would like to perform           research on this issue.       Windows Azure was mentioned to use as a free account or if you want to pay to use for mobile                 services. I would like to sign up for the free account and practice from there.
      Encourage us to visit http://www.asp.net/web-api to learn how to create an  API which is on my list.       The speaker presentation can be found at:      http://devhammer.net/creating-and-consuming-web-apis-in-.net