What will the future of online journalism look like?

According to the New York Times – currently the benchmark for news websites – quality news is soon going to be free and all over the web.

The NYT has released a couple of open interfaces (APIs)

to their database. With these APIs, users are free to build applications that are fed with specific links and metadata from the NYT and to spread it on the web. Giving away their content is actually supposed to lead users to the NYT website through these applications.

The idea is not a new one. There are many companies on the web that follow this strategy. Google lets users embed YouTube videos and maps on their websites for example, which raises awareness of the brand and generates leads to Google’s own sites. For publishers who tend to protect their content, this is a pretty revolutionary step though.

Hopefully it will pay off for the NYT. Rumour has it that the paper is experiencing financial difficulties. But the strategy could increase their advertising income because of more visits, as well as establish new business models – commercial websites who will pay for NYT content for instance.

The NiemanLab blog posted review of the Times Open, the conference on which the APIs have been introduced to the public.