graphql (facebook), falcor (netflix) and odata and ...
There is a need in web client applications to query a server. Many people have been turned off by REST as the basis for an API because it requires them to navigate the explicit or implied schema on the server through a series of REST calls. Often the REST URL format is adhoc. The REST calls reflect the data architecture on the server and require orchestration into the object graph to retrieve the data. A more formal adherence to REST would include links in the response that eases this type of navigation but many RESTful APIs do not follow this model. Along time ago, server side applications using ORM or just SQL tools ran into "how to pull an object graph" problem and never really solved it robustly although solutions exist. If the graph request was rigidly programmed into the object description, you would never be able to pull an ad-hoc object graph (that was not programmed into the ORM object annotations) easily and your client code would be littered with network database...