USA Today Toys with a Side Business: Selling Commercial Access to its Data

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By: Andrew Phelps | Nieman Journalism Lab

One year ago, USA Today opened up its massive database of articles, reviews, census figures, and sports salaries to the public. The newspaper provided open and well-documented APIs to software developers, but access was limited to personal and noncommercial use.

Last week the newspaper quietly changed that, offering commercial licensing of its data on a case-by-case basis. Premium licenses would remove rate limits and caps for data-hungry programs, too. That means USA Today can make money selling its data and app developers can make money using it.































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