Todd Mundt

NPR’s “Inside” blog has announced the coming launch of its new API in the next few days.

10am UPDATE: It’s now live. Here’s Daniel Jacobson’s post.

This is a pretty big deal… a signal of openness from NPR, a willingness to let developers have access to NPR’s content, and the beginning of what could be some really cool stuff.

What is an API? Here’s a definition only a developer could love. Here’s my somewhat mangled definition: API is an Application Programming Interface. It’s a set of tools developers can use to access parts of one web site and integrate it with another site or application. Examples? Those applications you add to your Facebook page, those cool applications that plot everything from crime data to photos on Google Maps.

NPR promises a gallery to showcase widgets when the API launches; the blog includes a link to Reverbiage, which plots NPR stories on a world map. That’s a widget I’d love to display on one of WFPL’s News pages. There’s also a nice iPhone app from Axiom Stack. Probably the best thing about an API is that developers anywhere with good ideas can build applications that can organize and present NPR’s content in all kinds of interesting ways.

An API was one of the least sexy recommendations of the Digital Distribution Consortium - remember that? The group was hard at work two years ago at this time, trying to find ways to present a more coherent way to present public radio online.

Some of the DDC recommendations were fought over, some ignored. But, hey, NPR is about to give us, and developers everywhere, the opportunity to create new tools that add value to NPR’s (and our own) content.