Home » New York Times lets users build things with its content (open API)

New York Times lets users build things with its content (open API)

Here’s another case study to add to the list of examples of distributed journalism: the New York Times has finally launched its articles API. In other words

“The Article Search API is a way to find, discover, explore, have fun and build new things. We’ve accumulated quite a few blocks/articles over the last 28 years — all of them tagged and labeled with loving care.”

That’s “over 2.8 million articles from 1981–today (updated hourly)”, with each article comprising “~35 searchable fields” (see image below).

As TechDirt says, opening up data like this is turning news into a platform (while pointing out that the paper’s Executive Editor, Bill Keller is simultaneously talking about trying to lock up their content).

This is the latest in a series of fantastic initiatives from the NYT’s data team, including the campaign finance API launched late last year, while other news organisations have made story-related databases public.

For a similar example of a news organisation opening up its API, the BBC has been running its Backstage project for some years now, providing the foundations for a wide range of prototypes and ideas.

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7 Responses to “New York Times lets users build things with its content (open API)”

  1. [...] Online Journalism Blog - New York Times lets users build things with its content (open API) [...]

  2. [...] 2009 be the year news organisations finally went open? Barely a month after the New York Times allowed users to build on 28 years of content with its articles API (with immediate results), The Guardian is opening up over a million articles to developers for [...]

  3. [...] things — ways that don’t rely on the top-down fiat of King Print. Among revolutionaries, open APIs are discussed with much fervour late into the [...]

  4. [...] media, Technology | Tags: Guardian, New York Times |   The New York Times blinked first and opened its 2.8 million articles allowing users to build things with its content via [...]

  5. [...] before then the New York Times and Guardian both launched APIs at the beginning of the year, MSN Local and the BBC have both been [...]

  6. [...] things — ways that don’t rely on the top-down fiat of King Print. Among revolutionaries, open APIs are discussed with much fervour late into the [...]

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