---
published: true
layout: post
title: News Industry R&D with Open APIs
image: >-
  http://kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com/journalism/nieman-journalism-labs-icon.jpg
author:
  name: kinlane
tags:
  - Industry
  - News
  - APIs
  - Open
---
There is an excellent analysis of Open API usage in news organizations at the Nieman Journalism Lab, called [Wisdom of the (developer) crowd: Key lessons from news organizations using open APIs to ramp up R&D](http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/04/wisdom-of-the-developer-crowd-key-lessons-from-news-organizations-using-open-apis-to-ramp-up-rd/ "Wisdom of the crowd: Key lessons from news organizations using open APIs to ramp up R&D").

This analysis is a summary of a paper by[Seth Lewis](http://sethlewis.org/ "Seth Lewis"), professor at University of Minnesota, and [Tanja Aitamurto](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tanja-aitamurto "Tanja Altamurto"), a Finish PH.D student at Stanford, that was presented at the International Symposium on Online Journalism earlier this month.

After studying the approaches of the four biggest players with open APIs are [NPR](http://www.npr.org/api/index "NPR"), [The New York Times](https://developer.nytimes.com/ "The New York Times"), [The Guardian](http://www.guardian.co.uk/open-platform "The Guardian"), and [USA Today](http://developer.usatoday.com/ "USA Today"), Lewis and Aitamurto came away with five key lessons:

*   Open APIs can serve as external R&D labs
*   Open APIs present a revenue opportunity
*   Open APIs help weave news organizations into the fabric of the web
*   Open APIs create an ecosystem effect
*   Open APIs can be a challenge, especially within the news organization

![](https://kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com/journalism/the_guardian.jpg) Lewis and Aitamurto conclude that Open APIs are not the solution to all of the news industries problems, but they are significant step toward a form of online publishing that is in sync with the web, and also allow publishers to take advantage of thewisdomof the (developer) crowd for research & development.

These new approaches offer a first glimpse of what [open innovation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_innovation "Open Innovation") using APIs could bring to the news business when it comes to revenue and partnerships.

You can read the [full article](http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/04/wisdom-of-the-developer-crowd-key-lessons-from-news-organizations-using-open-apis-to-ramp-up-rd/ "full article") at [Nieman Journalism Lab](http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/04/wisdom-of-the-developer-crowd-key-lessons-from-news-organizations-using-open-apis-to-ramp-up-rd/ "Nieman Journalism Lab"), and read the full paper by Lewis and Aitamurto, [Open APIs and News Organizations: A Study of Open Innovation in Online Journalism](http://online.journalism.utexas.edu/2011/papers/AitamuroLewis2011.pdf "Open APIs and News Organizations:  A Study of Open Innovation and Online Journalism").