Our fourth annual Hack Day drew more than 80 participants who created about 30 projects, many of which used APIs supported by representatives from Bitly, DocumentCloud, Mashery, NYPL Labs, Sunlight Foundation, Twilio and our very own NYT Developers. Together they taught, hacked and answered questions. By demo time, 23 projects were ready to show.
Highlights include:
NYT Bill Explorer by Ted Henderson, Lorelei Kelly, Linda Peng and Paul Schreiber
(Winner: Best News-Related Hack)
NYT Bill Explorer links to congressional bills referred to in New York Times articles. There’s a GitHub repo available if you’d like to use and improve the project.
Times 4 Teens by Angel Say and David Hu
(Winner: Best Use of a New York Times API)
@andrewhartonojr Hey youth! Do you like FOOTBALL? Read this article in the #nytimes about it! #educateyoself //t.co/3a2UeV8myT
— Times for Teens (@TimesTeens)
This Twitter bot may become a meme of its own. Times 4 Teens grabs tweets that include Instagram posts and compares the descriptions to keywords for trending New York Times articles. If there is overlap, the bot will reply to the original post with a link to the relevant Times article in an attempt to educate today’s tweeters, tweens and teens. Take a closer look at how it works.
SayWhat by Polina Giralt, Candida Haynes, Nick Collins and Anne Moroney
(Winner: Best Use of Sunlight Foundation APIs)
SayWhat uses Sunlight Foundation APIs to parse phrases from bills and public records, including bill complexity statistics. Take a look at the GitHub repo to see exactly how they did it.
PocketNSA by Christie Ewen, Emily Pakulski, Lisa van Gelder and Mei-Vern Then
(Winner: Best Use of the Twilio API)
Pocket NSA uses the Twilio API to set up and record a call between you and the person you’ve dialed. When the call is finished, PocketNSA sends you a copy of the recording.
Know Your Representatives by Govindaraj Kathirvel
(Winner: Best Use of Mashery APIs)
Know Your Representatives is a Windows 8 application that displays information about local legislators and pulls related news, Twitter feeds and hot topics from the New York Public Library, Sunlight Foundation and Klout APIs.
Rightwingify the Times by Michael Brendan Dougherty and Jeffrey Willson
(Winner: People’s Choice Award)
This clever hack changes the headline, photos and language of New York Times stories to match the style and tone of other publications.
Old Timey Menu by Sarah Squire
Old Timey Menu draws from The New York Public Library’s What’s on the Menu API to randomly generate menus featuring prices and meals from the past.
Archives and Articles by Matt Miller of NYPL Labs
Archives and Articles uses the NYT Article Search API to give context to NYPL archival materials.
Pharmatracker by Vivek Bhagwat, Sophie Chou and Dina Lamdany
Pharmatracker looks at the influence of pharmaceutical money by analyzing the frequency of certain words and phrases in legislators’ congressional speeches.
Topic Timeline by Christopher Casebeer and Jenna Telesca
Topic Timeline shows representative NYT stories (found through the NYT Article Search API) given a chosen keyword. Try the demo and examine the GitHub repo.
NYTravelogue by NYT developer Alastair Coote
NYT Travelogue is an atlas of New York Times photography, matched by metadata to each state and county.
Thanks to everyone for joining us, and a big thanks to our API partners. Check out recaps from Ted Henderson, Neil Sveri and Amit Jotwani. The 2014 schedule will be posted on developers.nytimes.com.
