Mashery

Conventional wisdom says the way to spot trends in technology is to follow the movers and shakers within the actual technology industry (people like Mike Arrington). However, it may be time to turn at least some of that conventional wisdom on its head.

If you follow the world of APIs (which you probably do since you’re reading the Mashery blog), the trendsetters to watch are not the technology digerati, but rather the business and development teams at companies like The New York Times (Disclosure: The Times’ API infrastructure is powered by Mashery).

The team behind The New York Times OPEN initiative recently announced the launch of a tool that instantly makes testing against New York Times APIs easier. This may sound like something of interest only to developers, but there are broader ramifications.

To stimulate content distribution partnerships and traffic drivers, the Times has been steadily releasing APIs. They now provide 11 of them, covering everything from Best Sellers to Congress to Real Estate. The API Tool is just the latest developer tool they’ve released. All of the developer tools provided by the Times makes using their APIs that much easier.

We’re seeing similar moves play out across other industries, most notably in areas like travel and real estate. Using APIs to expand markets is a trend which, while its roots are in development, is happening in industries that are decidedly not part of the Web 2.0 family tree.

This is more than the Times and other companies like them releasing more of their data. It’s bigger than that. It’s about non-traditional technology companies creating an environment where they are able to give outside developers access to treasure troves of valuable data and, in return, receive the benefits of expanded reach and the creation of wider communities around their brands.