{"id":84,"date":"2009-04-10T07:45:03","date_gmt":"2009-04-10T07:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp\/2009\/04\/inviting_the_audience_in_and_l\/"},"modified":"2009-04-10T07:45:03","modified_gmt":"2009-04-10T07:45:03","slug":"inviting_the_audience_in_and_l","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/04\/inviting_the_audience_in_and_l.html","title":{"rendered":"Inviting The Audience In (And Letting Them Use You How They Want)"},"content":{"rendered":"

At a time when the American newspaper industry increasingly considers ways to lock down its content and put it behind pay walls, the ever-innovative Guardian<\/i> newspaper is flinging wide its gates and making it easier for others to take and use its content. Last month the paper announced something it’s calling “Open Platform”<\/a>, which is a set of tools that allows anyone to build applications to pull Guardian content and re-use it on the internet.<\/p>\n

\n

The Guardian Content API includes articles as far back as 1999 and in some cases much further back. There are approximately 1,000,000
\narticles available. We will continue to open up more content as we’re
\nable to.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"GuardianOpenPlatform.jpg\"<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the most powerful  things open-source software developers have discovered is that if you open up your toolbox to anyone who wants to use it and allow them the ability to tinker and create, they’ll build things with it you never could have imagined. Drupal, for example, is a powerful free open-source content platform that has hundreds of innovations built into and on top of it because users are encouraged to take Drupal for free and make new things with it. Apple has unleashed a torrent of creativity with its iPhone Apps store.<\/p>\n

Already, developers have started building applications with the Guardian’s Open Platform. Some examples:<\/p>\n

\n

“I decided to write an application that searches The Guardian’s
\narchive and returns a link to the top hit using Twitter as the UI and
\nthe message bus. I didn’t need to build a new web site or client
\napplication. I wanted people to use whatever technologies they prefer
\nmost.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Or this:<\/p>\n

\n

“Towards the end of last week, a sleepness night led me to indulge a
\nchildish sense of humour with 15 minutes of tomfoolery, the output of
\nwhich was a graph comparing the decline and fall of various swear-words
\nin the pages of the Guardian over the last decade. In a bid to retain
\nsome sense of self-respect, I’ll for now ignore the fact that this
\ngraph has achieved a readership that dwarfs anything else I’ve written
\nin my career to date, and focus instead on how I did it.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Who knows what readers will create? But the bigger point is that once the Guardian’s users are invited in and given the power to make their own things, they form a stronger community around what the Guardian does. Is there a business model in that? Yes, just as eBay created a new generation of online entrepreneurs, the news organization that helps its community be entrepreneurial stands to reap rewards. <\/p>\n

When people ask me which is the news organization that most “gets” the internet, I usually mention The Guardian. The paper has an outsized online presence compared to its print circulation, and it has consistently led the pack in thinking about developing an audience and gathering and presenting information. The Guardian has a huge American audience, and its cultural coverage is probably the best around. In a related post on ARTicles today, I write about the Guardian’s artist-in-residence program<\/a> and some of the reader reaction. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a time when the American newspaper industry increasingly considers ways to lock down its content and put it behind pay walls, the ever-innovative Guardian newspaper is flinging wide its gates and making it easier for others to take and use its content. Last month the paper announced something it’s calling “Open Platform”, which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-84","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ePZm-1m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2006\/09\/the_best_culture_coverage.html","url_meta":{"origin":84,"position":0},"title":"The Best Culture Coverage?","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"September 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I like the Guardian. Though it has a good stable of writers, its biggest strength is its editing. The Guardian is a consistently lively read day in and day out. This is a paper that isn't afraid to argue with itself. A critic might sound off on some topic one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":119,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/06\/a_few_years_ago_arts.html","url_meta":{"origin":84,"position":1},"title":"Power Curve: Four (Short) Stories About Empowering Audiences","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"June 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"A few years ago arts organizations had the bright idea that they should sell tickets online. Not wanting to invest much in the effort, they turned to the obvious ready-made ticket seller: Ticketmaster. It wasn't an encouraging experience. Orchestras reported mediocre online sales. It wasn't until a customized ticket-selling web\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/06\/a_few_years_ago_arts.html#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"nike+.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/nike%2B.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":102,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/05\/the_big_newspaper_e-reader_gam.html","url_meta":{"origin":84,"position":2},"title":"The Big Newspaper E-Reader Gamble","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"May 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Several new large-format e-readers are about to go on sale. Newspaper execs are excited:These devices from Amazon and other manufacturers offer an almost irresistible proposition to newspaper and magazine industries. They would allow publishers to save millions on the cost of printing and distributing their publications, at precisely a time\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":69,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/03\/the_next_newspaper_casualty.html","url_meta":{"origin":84,"position":3},"title":"The Next Newspaper Casualty?","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"March 31, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The latest newspaper to teeter to the edge of existence is the Chicago Sun-Times, which has just filed for bankruptcy, joining a half dozen other major papers: The company has one significant creditor -- the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has said Sun-Times Media Group owes up to $608 million\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":110,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/06\/of_rocket_science_and_making_m.html","url_meta":{"origin":84,"position":4},"title":"Of Rocket Science And Making Money On Journalism","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"June 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Further to yesterday's post on how newspapers ought to expand their definition of news to make money comes this post by Steve Outing, suggesting such a strategy:The way for newspapers to charge for content is not rocket science. 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