I'm looking forward to seeing how this service will be monetized. I use it on one of my websites and it's great, however I'm not sure it's something I'd pay for just yet.
Embed.ly is very cool. It reduces friction and makes embedding content and accessing metadata a snap. The value it offers has tremendous potential.
That said, I think the company needs to explain to developers what happens if they build a hugely successful site on top of the API and depend on the embed.ly functionality.
For example, I see no Terms of Service -- So can I cache the output to reduce requests? Can I re-syndicate it in other formats? Can I power my meta-data scraper through embed.ly? Will they start to charge me? Will they release stats on most frequent API request URLs? Will those be aggregated or per user-agent?
I'm all for supporting new startups, but I'd like to know how they will support me for using them as they grow up.
PS, Please don't comment about how building a popular site or service on top of embed.ly (or someone else's API) is a bad idea – their entire business depends on you assuming it's okay to do that, so I'm just taking that assumption and rolling w/ it.
Great points, to answer generally, we don't have all those answers yet, our immediate goal is to support the next generation of great sites and cater our service to their needs. We are building out a pro service that is being shaped by all the feedback we have received from developers and publishers. Feel free to contact us.
Part of supporting the next generation of great sites is giving them the confidence to build on top of you.
IMHO, this is "problem" you solve which helps you gain traction, not a problem you solve once you have traction.
Just tell people what happens if they build a great site on top of the service you are offering today. Otherwise you're telling people to wait and see. (which I don't think you want)
Agreed, we did spend some time thinking about this stuff and writing down these points, but figured traction and proven work speaks for itself. If you check out blog.embed.ly, we love to broadcast any site that is using us. Always appreciate the feedback.
Congrats to a fellow YC W10 team. Smart guys that work hard. The headache they solve is very real and the analytics and data they collect will be invaluable.
