New York Times to release API
June 7, 2008 by Colleen Coplick
Filed under Social Media
Traditional media is starting to catch up to the New World Order. The New York Times has recently announced that they will be releasing their API to allow users to mash up the immense amount of data they’ve got on their servers.
Marc Frons, chief technology officer for The New York Times‘ digital side, says the Times is working on several big projects, including what Frons calls “a news and information” platform.
The goal of the API overall is to make the NYT programmable. Once the API is finished, the Times‘ internal developers will use it to build platforms to organize all the structured data such as events listings, restaurants reviews, recipes, etc.
There’s no specific release date set, but the API itself is expected to be done within a few weeks. Over the next six months, according to an interview with MediaBistro, Frons mentioned that “[the Times will] have some of the major pieces — a restaurant guide, weekend events listings and books [together],” Frons added.
The New York Times is one of the few publications that has truly embraced blogging, and now with their API introduction, are starting to prove they have the staying power to weather the powerful changes social media is bringing.
