Making an app's content open versus closed?

I'm working on a Django app, the objective of which is to collect data on video media, process/normalize/catego开发者_开发知识库rize and then display it within a site.

I'm wondering if I should open up the data through an API or not.

Are there any advantages in doing so?

usually you provide APIs when you want some external services/programs to use it.

other reason to have nice APIs is to have a AJAX code which will use extensively your backend. but a big disclaimer, in most of the cases standard (specialized) views are enough (and they be a 'lite' version of the API)

so at the end is question do you need it from start, or you can add this later-on when it will be needed/requested.