APIs Key To Understanding High-Priced Internet Stocks: Google Inc (GOOG)

The hottest tech term of our time is the Application Program Interface, or API. It’s time for Foolish investors to get hep to this jive.

An API is simply a programming method for using some larger programming framework. It’s a shorthand. Instead of writing a complex program to address, say, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Maps, you use the API and get your job done in a fraction of the time.

Google Maps, by the way, may be the most valuable play on the API board. If you want to know why Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is trading near its record highs, after languishing for some time, the answer lies in its APIs.

The Value of an API is its Use

APIs are now the most valuable bits of programming real estate on the planet. But their value, as with open source, is based on how many people are using it, and the degree of their commitment to them.

Twitter is now worth $10 billion, pre-IPO, mainly because of its API. Many companies are using Twitter data for various forms of market research – the API makes it easy.

Codingthis compiled a list of the 10 essential APIs back in 2010 and it’s illustrative of how fast this world changes. Most are pretty obvious – Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Maps, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)‘s Flickr, and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) are all represented – but some are less so, like Delicio.us, Digg, and Feedburner, which has faded in importance under Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s ownership.

In other words, the list of key APIs is subject to change. Investors who track APIs can benefit from seeing the changing landscape.

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Dominates the API World

Programmable Web‘s list of the most used APIs lists literally dozens of Google APIs, but the key properties are at the top of the list – Google Maps, Twitter, Google YouTube, Yahoo’s Flickr, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) eCommerce and Facebook.

Notice a company missing from the above lists? Now you know why Microsoft is trying to unify its Windows 8, Windows RT and Windows Phone platforms around (what else, class) an Application Program Interface.

One great place to track what’s happening in the API world is through the work of Kevin Sundstrom, who writes for Programmable Web. Kevin tracks the new uses of APIs as well as the business of APIs. Through him, for instance, we learn that Facebook’s Instagram is now being used for an iPhone app that tells people what’s happening in their town now, and that Urban Airship Push, an API that delivers specific content to mobile users, has gotten a $25 million capital infusion.