Thingaverse changing file format

Thing files are just zipped up bundles of STL and other related files. Open them up with 7zip or WinZip.

I can confirm that the new THING format is nothing more than a "zip" archive.  I have 7-zip installed and it can open these files just fine.  Each .THING file contains the .STL as well as a .JSON file, which are javascript files.  I don't know what it does exactly, or whether it's used by the printer, or by Thingiverse, but it appears to contain some kind of cataloging information. 

Here is what one of these files looks like:

"attribution" : {
      "author" : "Unknown",
      "license" : "Unknown"
   },
   "constructions" : {
      "plastic A" : {}
   },
   "instances" : {
      "instance1" : {
         "construction" : "plastic A",
         "object" : "RepubliquebasCut2.stl",
         "scale" : "mm",
         "xform" : "transform1"
      }
   },
   "namespace" : "http://spec.makerbot.com/ns/thing.0.1.1.1",
   "objects" : {
      "RepubliquebasCut2.stl" : {}
   },
   "transformations" : {
      "transform1" : {
         "matrix" : [
            [ -11.99999713897705, 0.0, 0.0, 70.22712707519531 ],
            [ 0.0, -11.99999713897705, -0.0, -85.83348846435547 ],
            [ -0.0, 0.0, 12.0, -7.987482070922852 ],
            [ 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0 ]
         ]
      }
   }
}