Thursday, August 13, 2009

Move Over Google, The Times Up and Went All "Searchy"

The New York Times has a digital newsletter called @Times. The tagline is “Where the conversation begins.” Since I first got the newsletter awhile back, I’ve been tossing it away. Yesterday, I read it. Maybe you’re as late to the party as I am, so here’s what I learned from my first read.

As ReadWriteWeb reported last May (yes, I'm late to the party), The Times went open source in encouraging software developers to design applications that will find, sort, and visually chart the vast information stored at The Times. What an incredible resource for writers, marketers, and researchers!

Landing at The Art of Times Developer Network page, you find an intro that reads: “You already know that NYTimes.com is an unparalleled source of news and information. But now it's a premier source of data, too — why just read the news when you can hack it?” So, this is hacking ... This is BIG.

The current APIs (application programming interface) facilitate article search, movie reviews, congressional voting records, best sellers, etc. The Tools are super cool. For example, via the Visualization Lab "you [yes, you!] can create visual representations of NYT data using IBM's 'Many Eyes' technology." (The Grey Lady loves Big Blue. Awesome.)

Still wondering what to do with The Times APIs? Drop by the Gallery. "The Arrival of Transparency" will make you drool.

Final note: Media Bistro quoted Marc Frons, The Times' chief technology officer, about possible social media applications. Fons reportedly said, "We don't want to be Facebook. Facebook is Facebook. We'll probably do something a little bit different. We'd like it to be like the email an article [sic], only much more robust than that."

I can't help it. Seeing a newspaper -- because, you know, newspapers are dead -- challenge Google and Social Media all at once? Well, it feels gooooood.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

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