Now, the Grey Lady is working on an API that aims to make the entire newspaper "programmable."
In addition to the API, New York Times CTO Marc Frons told mediabistro.com that internal developers at the paper will use the platform to organize structured data on the site. Following that, the paper plans to offer developer keys to the API allowing programmers to more easily mash up the paper's structured content -- reviews, event listings, recipes, etc. "The plan is definitely to open [the code] up," Frons said. "How far we don't know."
In addition to the API, New York Times CTO Marc Frons told mediabistro.com that internal developers at the paper will use the platform to organize structured data on the site. Following that, the paper plans to offer developer keys to the API allowing programmers to more easily mash up the paper's structured content -- reviews, event listings, recipes, etc. "The plan is definitely to open [the code] up," Frons said. "How far we don't know."
Smart move. For far too long the Times fought interacting with the internet, instead trying to create an isolated New York Times registration required site. In general those are bad ideas for web content (they are useful for some things) but it was an especially bad idea for the New York Times (they had more great content than all but a few sites and should have allowed much more linking to there content by millions of people like me. Because that way they would gain huge readership. This API plan sounds good.
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