New York Times APIs
developer.nytimes.com
developer.nytimes.com
11. What do you mean by "commercial purposes"? Here are a few examples of what we consider commercial purposes:
1. Selling New York Times content or data in any application. 2. Charging a subscription fee for any New York Times content or data. 3. Selling any application built with one of our APIs.
If you are making more than 5,000 calls per day (via an application or any other method) to an individual API, we will notice that and assume you're using our API for a commercial purpose. Please contact us if you have hit that limit but do not think you are using the API for a commercial purpose.
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It looks enticing but I'm not entirely sure if these limitations negate the purpose of the API existing (aside from internal use and hobbyists using it for personal purposes).
NYT[ journal -> write -> edit -> publish -> distribute]
Content has to be produced, and it has to be distributed. In general, any piece of content will flow along that chain.
Before the Internet, the "old guard" of media -- The Times, The Post, etc. -- held a monopoly on the entire supply chain. They found the sources, wrote the articles, and even delivered them to your door, printed and ready to read. It would have been difficult for an outside company, or industry, to encroach on any part of the NYT business. Why would the NYT surrender part of such a valuable supply chain? By controlling content from production to distribution, they were able to charge higher prices for it.
But now, the distributive power of the Internet has broken the supply chain in half, resulting in new economic specialization. Buzzfeed beats the NYT in distribution, but the NYT beats Buzzfeed in production quality. Now, the supply chain looks more like:
NYT[ journal -> write -> edit -> publish] -> [distribute]BUZZ
It seems that there is a place for both Buzzfeed and the NYT on the supply chain. One can control, and should specialize in, the production of content. The other can distribute it.
Old media companies are finally "waking up" to the threat of content distribution experts like Buzzfeed. The Guardian, WaPo, and the NYT have fantastic tech departments forming a smart digital strategy. They recognize that yes, Buzzfeed is taking part of their supply chain, but no, Buzzfeed cannot compete with the NYT on journalistic integrity. As long as the NYT employs the staff that it does, with writers of decades of experience and connections in the industries they cover, there will be a demand for NYT content. Some of that demand may come from end-consumers, and some may come from distribution companies like Buzzfeed. But the fact of the matter is, the NYT can still own the production part of the supply chain, and it makes sense to mitigate the threat to their distribution models by selling production "wholesale" to distributors.
This move from the NYT is a great milestone for their digital strategy. They're recognizing that content, like any product, has a supply chain and production process. They know they own the production process, but the Internet has enabled new companies to own downstream parts of the supply chain. So by releasing API's to their raw content, they are providing access to their raw product for any company who might want to sell it.
That's not how print works. Many papers own their printing presses, but the output is all sold to one distribution company.
That company handles subscriptions, billing, customer service, and delivery for the newspaper as well as a bunch of local publications unaffiliated with the newspaper's parent company (for example, suburban papers and trade press), in exchange for a cut of revenue. It uses the same branding as the newspaper when interfacing with customers, so the interface is (sort of) seamless, but it is a separate company with separate shareholders.
That's how it's always worked in my hometown, since at least the 80s. So this adjustment might not be that innovative or disruptive.
Ownership of the press is really (in this day and age or even 20 years ago) not that important. There are plenty of web printing houses that would be glad to print your newspaper and use some of their excess capacity. There are (and have always been) many companies that would be willing to distribute that paper if you gave them names of people that want to receive the paper. In fact if you have NYT homes delivery in many cities (outside of NY Metro) it is probably delivered by the same company that delivers the local paper (thrown on your law by the same driver).
The key of course is getting people that want to buy your newspaper. The content and the marketing of the paper.
The API is the same as anything. NYT specializes in content, Google Translate specializes in machine translation of text. You pay for what you need.
We should be able to come up with some pretty cool uses for nyt api considering the insane amt of content it provides access to. the OP is just one.
The NYT and the Guardian are trying a bunch of different approaches to improve their income. Honestly, a world where even a world class newspaper like the NYT struggles to be profitable is a scary place.
Take a look at the semantic API that provides NYT's controlled vocabulary for entities.
"12. Is there an API call limit? When you register for an API key, you'll receive information about limits and other Terms of Use. If you approach a limit, a warning e-mail will automatically be sent to you."
So I tried signing up for an account. Their on-boarding process - prehistoric. Nope.
Some people love the single sign on (our developer registration is tied to the normal NYTimes.com registration) and some people hate it -- but we're always listening for direct feedback about what's wrong with the process.