I've certainly considered that idea. There are two big questions here: 1. What does the API look like? 2. How do I promote it to that particular audience?
Right now websites could use the existing service to manually add links to new content. Certain features might make such usage quite a bit easier, for example the ability to take text markup (MediaWiki markup, MarkDown, etc.) and spit it out with links added in the appropriate syntax. This would still be manual, but it would be pretty easy to use.
A fully automatic API could be something as simple as "include this .js file". That's simple, but not very efficient (caching would help of course), and doesn't present the best user experience (there would generally be a delay where the text is visible in the browser, but links haven't been added yet.) A server-side API would certainly be better, but then you have a whole bunch of different server types to support: PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, ASP.NET, or even application specific like WordPress or Drupal, etc.
I could probably roll a client-side JavaScript inclusion API in a weekend, but it would probably take another couple of weekends to implement decent caching.
A server-side solution is ultimately the right way to go, but is there a way to get maximum bang for the buck? Just expose an XML API and let other people do the server-side integration?
A server-side XML api would be ideal; javascript loads on every page and would add significant latency to page loads, which is unacceptable (and wasteful, and tough on your servers). Find someone who can code a Drupal and a Wordpress module and you're pretty much set.
The only question with an XML api is how do you benefit from it?
Right now websites could use the existing service to manually add links to new content. Certain features might make such usage quite a bit easier, for example the ability to take text markup (MediaWiki markup, MarkDown, etc.) and spit it out with links added in the appropriate syntax. This would still be manual, but it would be pretty easy to use.
A fully automatic API could be something as simple as "include this .js file". That's simple, but not very efficient (caching would help of course), and doesn't present the best user experience (there would generally be a delay where the text is visible in the browser, but links haven't been added yet.) A server-side API would certainly be better, but then you have a whole bunch of different server types to support: PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, ASP.NET, or even application specific like WordPress or Drupal, etc.
I could probably roll a client-side JavaScript inclusion API in a weekend, but it would probably take another couple of weekends to implement decent caching.
A server-side solution is ultimately the right way to go, but is there a way to get maximum bang for the buck? Just expose an XML API and let other people do the server-side integration?