The Guardian  – a UK news organization – today announced a new initiative to make its content and data for free and weave it “into the fabric of the internet”.

The Guardian’s Open Platform launched with two separate content-sharing services, which will allow users to build their own applications in return for carrying Guardian advertising:

• An application programming interface (API) will let web developers build applications and services using Guardian content; and
• A Data Store will contain datasets curated by Guardian editors and open for others to use.

The Guardian content API includes not only articles but videos, galleries and other content.

This makes it easier for third parties to make an iPhone app, a Boxee channel or a news mashup based on Guardian content.

The Data Store provides statistics and data curated by Guardian editors. Traditionally this data has appeared in the newspaper or appeared in a table on a Guardian website. Now, these statistics will be made available for anyone to use.

The Data Store launched with 80 data sets, including figures on child poverty in England and world carbon emissions by country. Simon Rogers, news editor, graphics, at the Guardian, will highlight some of the data sets in a Datablog, suggesting ways that the sets could be combined, or mashed up. It will also be a place where the Guardian highlights some of the best projects from its partners.

The Guardian’s announcement is a bold move; it shows that there are some traditional news organizations that understand that they will need to change radically to survive in the context of the Internet.

The Guardian understands that local media media is dead, and that the future for news is making your content available globally, as many ways as possible.