At SXSW this morning, June Cohen, TED’s Executive Producer of Media, announced TED’s intention to open an application programming interface (API) for its posted TEDTalks and associated data — in the hopes that developers will use the API to build new tools for viewing and sharing. Initially, the API will focus on TED’s content library, giving developers access to TED’s almost 900 posted TEDTalks, as well as their rich metadata, including topic/tag, date, event, length, ratings, translations and transcripts. Access to the API will be granted to individual developers or organizations, based on an application detailing the proposed noncommercial use.

Greg Ferenstein of Fast Company writes:

Speaking before her announcement at TED, June Cohen … told Fast Company that in keeping with the organization’s promise of transparency, “The natural next step is to open up content to the developer community…. Every time we’ve allowed people to contribute, people have surprised and humbled and delighted us.” More to the point, she says, “We know we don’t have the monopology on good ideas.”

The API will be released midyear.

If this announcement makes you as happy as it makes us, please know: We are hiring engineers! Details at on.ted.com/Jobs