The NYT API: Newspaper as Platform [GigaOm]
Among the economic bad news out there these days is the constant stream of negative stories about the demise of newspaper advertising. Even as I write this post, I'm watching my favorite morning news show, "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, and that's exactly what they're talking about. As the economy worsens, that lost ad revenue is moving to the web. But the web ad revenue is never as much as that of print ads, creating serious questions about the sustainability of newspapers' current business model. The New York Times has experimented with various revenue generating models with its online product, and has recently announced a new model with hopes that it may create some new possibilities.
The Times has released its entire article library from 1981 forward and have made the source material accessible to programmers who wish to create web applications that put the content to new uses. Articles from 1987 forward are free for anyone to use. It's a novel attempt to use one of the Times' biggest assets - it's vast repository of news archives with articles spanning the globe. Researchers and programmers have only to use their imagination to dream up new tools using the Times' library. Will the Times' new online business model save itself and other newspapers? Judging from the success of other open-source models on the Internet, I'd say they have a good shot. I'll be looking forward to seeing the new web applications that creative minds develop using the Times' new API.
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