Opening up API’s and access to content driven sites, especially in the case of Guardian News Media Group, heralds in a new and refreshing approach to online by a transitioning traditional media group. In days of yore nomadic brutish types would stand on bridges and charge arbitrary taxes for crossing them. In many ways, this old keeper of the keys mentality should have died years ago and has no place existing. Even the music industry has been quick to adapt, and we’re already seeing the music-as-a-singular-unit model fall away as Spotify tears down walls, and merely offers a light tax for those who wish to dwell – but is also fine for passers through to just listen to the occasional advertisement.

In terms of the Guardian however – this is a move that the Times or Telegraph online would struggle to compete with, mainly because the GMC is managed by a charitable trust and thus not too tightly bound by the leash of priggish decisions that favour the shareholder and wound the audience. The Guardian’s stance in opening its content demonstrates conviction that the sum is greater than its parts and that the ring-fencing of content makes no sense, because the brand is greater than the content.

I accept that whatever comes out of this new API is unclear – but there is a distinct kind of see-what-happens mentality to the open platform, where the experimental nature that this allows is likely to give developers an area to experiment and create within. That said – roadmaps only really work for shareholders, so the blue-sky option is probably the best way to go because developers are more likely to be hindered than helped by any charted course.

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