Technola
NPR Launches New API
On Tuesday NPR announced the launch of their new API, which allows users to easily generate custom API calls using an innovative query generator. The API can also return results in RSS, MediaRSS, JSON, Atom and through HTML and JavaScript widgets. For more background visit the Inside NPR.org blog or (for a more critical perspective) check out the related articles on TechCrunch and Mashable.com.
And for those unfamiliar with APIs, here's a nice overview. Examples? Pro Bono Net uses an API to share organizational data from the National Pro Bono Opportunities Guide with the ABA Second Season of Service's Volunteer Opportunity Search Engine, which also includes volunteer opportunities from the ABA National Directory of Law-Related Programs and Idealist.org. This same technology is being piloted to share resources between statewide advocates sites that are built on different templates and into case management systems so that advocates have ready access to resources that are automatically filtered based on a client's legal problem. -M
http://www.techno.la/admin/trackback/117750
People flocked to the site to learn more about this API, but NPR evidently underestimated its popularity potential, and the servers crashed. And what followed should be replicated - Andy Carvin, who had also announced this API's launch on Twitter, started to tweet about the crash status and what was happening to get the servers back up. It was a great way to get information out to the public about what was happening and when they could expect the site to return.