The federal government’s new web site at USASpending.gov will be a playground for journalists. Why? Because it was developed with a user-friendly customer-facing interface, but mostly because of the access to its data that is available through the API it offers. (More at On the Media).
The API will allow web developers at news organizations or independent journalism startups to mix and mash all that data, with other information sources, according to their own specific focus. That means new Web pages and database subsets built by industry, geography, voting trends or any other slice of interest.Â
It’s info porn that’s customizable.
Data-driven journalists and market research professionals should be salivating over the new census data next year, too. If this is any indication of the information accessibility we are going to see from the new Obama administration, it should come with a fully functional API, too, meaning we will see some very interesting mash-ups.Â
(And if you think that’s totally geeked out, check out the countdown clock over at census.gov.)
Mark Briggs 
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