121–130 of 181 posts
Super cool. Only thing, though, is that they should be charging for this. Seeing as how NPR stations rely on listener donations, this seems like a missed opportunity to earn some extra revenue and bolster the budget for stations.
Super cool. Only thing, though, is that they should be charging for this. Seeing as how NPR stations rely on listener donations, this seems like a missed opportunity to earn some extra revenue and bolster the budget for stations.
This isn't really any different from the streaming player on npr.org. It's got a slightly fancier subscription mechanism. At the end of the day, it's not that useful because I can't rely on my phone's 4G to remain connected without buffering while listening to an hour long news program on a trip. What would be worth charging money for is an app that could cache a configurable number of hours of new curated content wh…
A lot of the available content categories aren't specific to New York, so it might be worth checking out regardless of where you live.
Anyone else find the concept a little weird? NPR is already like this in many ways (heavily left-leaning) so this argument is already somewhat moot, but: hearing news stories tailored just for me sounds ignorant. News shouldn't be a thing which I am allowed to filter based on my biases.
I'd say the opposite: News shouldn't be a thing where other people can tell me what I am "allowed" to read or not.
I left my job at CNET/CBS earlier this year to found a bay area startup -- http://recent.io/ -- with a news recommendation engine and accompanying Android/iOS apps. You can choose to read personalized "Recommended for me" articles, or certain topics, or top news articles, etc. The Recommended category is unique to you; the other categories are common to everyone.
I've shipped the alpha to a few testers, and you're welcome to sign up for the beta. After using it for a bit, you might have a different opinion about whether you should be "allowed" to select what you're interested in, or delegate that in part to a recommendation engine.
Cool, hopefully it will replace the All Songs Considered audio stream (which is great). Side note: Is it just me, or this "scroll to reveal stuff in steps" is a bit frustrating? It seems to be used more and more often and I am sometimes puzzled by the fact that I'm missing the scrolling step. I try scrolling and get either too far (which shows half an image coming from above) or don't get anywhere (which makes me scr…
Not sure if I'd actually use this app, but just wanted to say you guys in the states are fortunate to have NPR producing top quality radio!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both can. Every service that runs under the hood (recommenders, raters, story fetching, login, etc.) is an agnostic API that can be used elsewhere. Some of the auto manufacturers and TV apps were already using a scaled down version, albeit without all the features and services of NPR One
Where are these agnostic APIs?
There are about 2 dozen endpoints that aren't public, either because they have little use outside the building, they may contain sensitive info, or they are valuable but only available with licensing. I'm going to explain NPR's finances a bit more in the above thread.
EDITs: I'll add that off the top of my head, some of the private APIs that power NPR one are used in at least one connected TV app that may not have launched, and also in some car partners. We built a great API on top of NPR's internal library database a few years back. Librarians tag the people, movies, songs, etc. used in every NPR radio story going back decades. That one isn't yet robust enough to handle outside use, but if they release it it's really interesting.
The story API (public, above) is the workhorse. Literally every mobile/car/web app and all stations and other websites syndicating NPR content use that one.
I really appreciate NPR. They truly try to embetter their offerings. It's nice that we have a source of news that is not beholden to advertisers or corporate interests (although the number of 'This content was made possible by donations from...' I hear at the end of the larger shows is a bit worrying). I just wish Says You would release their episodes as a podcast.
Content programming fees are NPR's main form of revenue. When your station WXYZ holds a fundraiser, you donate to them, not to NPR. WXYZ pays NPR on a sliding scale. A station with 1 million listeners pays roughly 10x what a station with 100k listeners pay. NPR is actually barred from accepting donations directly, again "bypass". (NPR can take big one-time gifts, like the Joan Kroc $250M).
Stations pay the biggest dollars for the big "tent pole" shows (Morning Edition/All Things Considered) and this supports many other program and functions. In the FM world, stations have basically had exclusive distribution right. Digital changes that, of course, and creates the "bypass" I mentioned below. This is why you've never seen a ME/ATC podcast (I'm the anonymous answerer here: http://www.quora.com/Why-does-NPR-not-offer-All-Things-Consi...)
It's very possible (and was being discussed) that since listeners are logged on, NPR One could know if you're a supporter and suppress the pledge drive.
The challenge is that NPR and it's stations are still tethered together by the governance model. No one can "go it alone" without some changes, they'll either weather disruption together or fail together.
Anyone else had better luck?
On my Nexus 5, this went through the login/signup process, but now crashes on startup. Every time. Anyone else had better luck?