Guardian frees up its data

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 10 Mar 2009 at 11:42

The Guardian has launched a new "open platform" that will allow other sites to use content and data from the newspaper.

The Platform comprises two parts: an API that allows site owners to build applications and widgets containing Guardian content, and a Data Store that makes reams of stats available for use in mashups.

Guardian News and Media Editor, Emily Bell, claims the Open Platform heralds a "new chapter in our history and a new foundation for the future of our journalism".

Yet, while the data may be openly available, it's not necessarily free, with The Guardian claiming it will "in the future ask partners to display advertising from our ad network on pages with our full content". Developers have to apply for a key to the API before they are granted access to Guardian content.

The Data Store is perhaps the most interesting of the two. This sees facts and figures compiled by the newspaper made available as fully exportable Google Spreadsheets.

Available data includes full rankings and statistics on British universities, population data and figures on British troop deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The newspaper says it's opening up the hand-picked data to see if others can find more interesting ways of presenting it. "We want to know what you think, what great data visualisations you've seen (or produced) and what you want to know," the newspaper claims on its accompanying Datablog.