Here’s why. From the Wired Blog:
Using Twitter’s application programming interface (API), a programmer with even a modest amount of experience can create a web app that gathers public data from Twitter, or uses it to send links, commands or bursts of information.
“[Twitter’s] open API is a huge reason it has grown into such a platform…
State and local governments strapped for cash (that’s all of them I think) take heed.
Open up your data — or, in the words of DC CTO Vivek Kundra, “Democratize” your data — and let the development community build apps for you.