Daniel Levitt runs a recipe sharing web site called WhatCouldICook.com. He was an early beta user of the Open Platform who also helped us see what capabilities people wanted from the Guardian.
"I was really pleased to find out that I could use guardian.co.uk content for my website. Then when I learned I could integrate my search tool directly into guardian.co.uk and partner on a commercial deal I realised how powerful the Open Platform really was."
This brief case study shows how this partner used the Open Platform to get more out of his project than he would have been able to on his own.
Background
WhatCouldICook.com began as a dissertation project on information systems, programming and design. As a student with limited resources and a desire to learn how to cook, Daniel decided to focus his efforts on recipes.
After building his initial website framework for sharing recipes Daniel discovered the Guardian's recipes. The Open Platform provided all the recipe articles via the Content API which made it possible for him to collect and republish them.
The Open Platform gave Daniel the content that would make his project really work the way he wanted it to.
He launched his site in May 2009, and we soon noticed what he had done.
We asked Daniel if he wanted to spend some time with our developers in our offices in London to test out a new service we were working on for integrating 3rd party apps into the Guardian called MicroApps.
Daniel came down from Liverpool to test out several ideas with us and to push our thinking on what the framework needed to be able to do. We made some changes based on his feedback and the editorial and commercial teams also uncovered some different ways to work together.
Today he has released a new MicroApp on our food and drink section that brings some of the functionality he has on his site into guardian.co.uk - recipe search.
How it works
The recipe search engine that Daniel wrote for his own site (using some feedback from Guardian readers and online food editor Susan Smillie) is now also running on guardian.co.uk.
He pulls down guardian.co.uk recipes, identifies ingredients in the articles, indexes the data using Solr/Lucene and optimises search results for the user using some of the tagging and refinements features in the Content API.
When a user searches for 'eggs, cheese' on the guardian.co.uk recipe search, for example, our machines call his app which is hosted remotely and return the results his app gives us within guardian.co.uk pages on our domain.
An integrated partnership
The Guardian recently launched a new Food Ad Network. Daniel's site was a perfect candidate to join. He is now a member, and the Guardian is selling and delivering advertising on WhatCouldICook.com.
This relationship is an excellent example of the open principles and opportunities with the Open Platform.
Open Out: guardian.co.uk provided recipe articles via the Content API for WhatCouldICook.com to republish, and the site became a member of our Food Ad Network benefitting us both mutually.
Open In: guardian.co.uk has a large and deeply engaged food web community. Using the MicroApp framework, WhatCouldICook.com was able to license it's recipe search engine functionality directly into guardian.co.uk components and pages.
Q: Who benefits? A: Everyone, of course
Users benefit from having more tools to help them on guardian.co.uk and more places and contexts to experience the Guardian across the internet.
Contributors will find their recipes are reaching larger audiences. Recipes will surface in more contexts for potential readers in the search results on guardian.co.uk.
Our partner WhatCouldICook.com benefits from having robust, high quality recipe content to publish, from sharing revenue on the premium rates we're able to achieve selling display ads in our vertical ad networks and from the licensing relationship with guardian.co.uk for his software.
guardian.co.uk benefits from being able to reach new markets that we might not otherwise find. We grow our vertical ad network through high quality partners like WhatCouldICook.com. We're also able to offer our end users innovative, clever and useful interactive services provided by experts outside of our domain.
Generating value
This partnership is a great example of one of the many ways we can work with partners using the Open Platform. In this case, a partner has created value for his own business while also improving guardian.co.uk.
On the Word of Mouth blog Susan said this about the value of Daniel's app:
"Our archive is a treasure trove of recipes. We've accumulated thousands of them in varying styles over the last 10 years from the Observer, the Guardian, their associated magazines and from guardian.co.uk. While the content is undoubtedly rich, this variety of editorial styles has made for a frankly troublesome archive and developing a search hasn't been easy, but a great deal of hard work and patience from Daniel has paid off - the search he has designed makes our recipes about 100% more findable than they were before."
Working with us
If you want to learn more about working with guardian.co.uk and using the Open Platform, please contact a member of our team or send an email to openplatform@guardian.co.uk.