In the past, I’ve been accused of being way too hard on the New York Times for their various online initiatives.  Though I don’t agree with that I can see where it comes from.  I’ve gone out of my way on occasion to point out what I thought was the error of their ways. 

Which is why I was so happy today.  I think this, aside from just being neat, is a step worthy of praise…

On Tuesday, members of the 111th Congress convened in Washington. Over the next two years, the 535 men and women of the House and Senate will introduce, consider and vote on a range of issues, from an economic stimulus package to confirmation of President-elect Barack Obama’s cabinet nominees. So it’s an appropriate time to announce the release of our Congress API, which lets developers access information about Congressional representatives and their votes.

Now this suffers from the same flaw as many of the things I’ve criticized in the past because it (a) costs money and (b) provides no revenue.  But I’m not against it and I’ll tell you why. 

Because this at least reports the news, albeit to other computers rather than people.  This is something that strengthens their overall brand and in doing so provides a service that compliments the ones they charge for.  That, to me, is the polar opposite of things like “sending your users away” which actually strengthens competing services at the expense of your own.

I love technology and want to see it deployed as much as possible.  But I’ve been around long enough to know that great services that cost a lot and don’t create any return eventually disappear (as demonstrated by the fact that the New York Times is close to disappearing themselves). 

There is plenty of cool technology out there, like this, that will actually strengthen the Times’ brand.  So I’d like to see them do more stuff like this.  That way I can enjoy the technology and know it won’t disappear in a year or two.