Hacking on Rd.io at Spotify - Combining APIs
This is part of my experience when I attended the Spotify NYC hackathon, way back in the day.
At a hackathon, an easy technique to win is to combine all the sponsor’s APIs together in a unique way. You set yourself up for success by appealing to multiple sponsors and you learn multiple APIs, not just one.
This is the approach I took when I was at the Spotify NYC Hackathon. One sponsor was Rd.io, another one: Twilio - a phone based startup that has an API for telephony.
Combining APIs is technically simple - it’s also important to have a story around why combing those APIs make sense. What practical problem are you solving? How does it impact users? The more “every day”, the better!.
In my situation, I combined those two together into a kind of DJ Party list. I framed the problem as a way to let attendees of a party to easily queue up songs at a party. (Who hasn’t been at a party and just wanted to mix things up?? 😄)
I found a way to contribute back in an unexpected way.