I’ve been a user of Beatport for years now and have watched them grow to the biggest online music store dedicated to electronic music.

There is definitely a love-hate relationship with them for many people. We love Beatport for having such a wide choice of music. We love them for getting early exclusives. But we also hate them for being a bit “too big for their boots” and, most importantly, not really listening to their users.

We waited a looong time for this new version of Beatport. Far longer than it should have taken and even when they launched in January this year they were missing a few things fans thought would be shoe-ins.

Something I have been calling for since Beatport announced it was making version 4.0 over a year ago is a public API. Why oh why haven’t Beatport sorted this out yet?

Websites that offer open APIs get all the usual benefits of open source development: a huge, creative workforce for very little money! Simply look at the enormous success of Facebook’s API, which continues to grow and go in new directions, and also Twitter with it’s simple but very useful API.  These APIs have helped these sites grow enormously by effectively outsourcing work to anyone from hobbyist programmers and professional developers.

I would love to have access to a Beatport API for many reasons.  One of the best reasons for me would be so I can access my account’s favourite artists and labels so I can display them here on my blog.  Or have a list of the latest tracks released by my favourite artists in a simple list so I can see if it’s worth going to Beatport today.

Probably the main reason I’d like an API is because I don’t think Beatport are serving my needs very well, which is fair enough if I am in a small minority, but then why not let fans like me mold and shape the Beatport service to suit my needs?  It can still be Beatport branded and it will still have me going through their payment gateway so it will always benefit them.  Also, creative people will be able to add huge value to the Beatport service.  A Beatport API should be a no-brainer!

Does anyone agree with me about this?  What other things would be cool to create using a Beatport API?  Add you comments below!