The Information Age Comes of Age

One trend has emerged over the past couple of months that has led me to think the much vaunted ‘information age’ may truly be upon us. At the start of February, the New York Times made its content available on an open Application Programming Interface (API). The Guardian followed suit with a similar scheme a week later, and more recently, the Civil Service proved that good things really do come in three’s.

For the uninitiated, an open API allows you or I, or any third party, to develop applications that can use an organisations assets or resources in new and innovative ways, massively widening access to the information.

While this may sound quite technical, not to mention rather risky for the group exposing their data, the benefits are easy to understand. Take for example one of the first applications to be developed for the Guardian; a geo-tagging tool that allows readers to plot the location of articles on an open-source map allowing everyone to see stories relevant to their local area.

Open platforms provide organisations with rewards commensurate to the amount of data they free up. It’s therefore encouraging to see the public sector already making use of open platform initiatives, particularly considering the quantity and quality of data they hold. Super rich data perfect for the online community to potentially create some hugely beneficial applications.

Freeing data was a central pillar of the Power of Information Report, and was brought to life in the subsequent Show Us a Better Way competition. Enticed by the prospect of £20,000 worth of development resources, users have submitted ideas for how public data could enhance everything from crime mapping to Sat Navs.

Hopefully over the coming months and years we’ll see more departments and public bodies opening up their data, and the information age really coming of age.

Image of New York Times lead articles mapped on the NYT API from blprnt_van