Application Development_demian Perry_npr Digital Media

NPR’s API and Mobile Development Daniel Jacobson / Demian Perry App Development and Mobile Ops, NPR

Who is NPR?


NPR (National Public Radio)







Leading producer and distributor of radio programming in the US More than 27 million listeners a week Broadcasted on over 800 local radio stations nationwide

NPR Digital Media






Develop NPR.org and supporting tools Produce digital-only content including blogs, slideshows, editorial columns Produce over 200 podcasts (800+ in directory) Develop mobile apps and sites Develop API and other distribution channels

History of API Features in Initial Launch in July, 2008







Full Story API with Query Generator Contains almost everything on NPR.org Over 250,000 stories and over 400,000 audio stories

Features Added in December, 2008









Mix Your Own Podcasts Station Finder API More content Improved query-ability Added “remap” functionality

Features Added in July, 2009






Full Transcripts API – over 80,000 transcripts Added almost 200,000 new MP3 files

Philosophy of NPR Digital Media Build Content Management tools, not Web Publishing tools







COPE (Create Once Publish Everywhere) Separate content/data from display/presentation Content is modular/portable

Understand Your Atom







Story is the Atom of NPR Stories contain ‘Types’ and ‘Assets’ Stories belong to ‘Lists’

Know When to Build and When to Integrate







Core systems built and/or managed internally Other systems depend on cost/benefit When possible, use Open Source solutions

MySQL

JAVA JSP TOMCAT

MySQL & XML Files

PHP & SimpleXML

NPR’s CMS *

* Data entry for stories for all presentation layers

NPR’s API *

* The foundation for NPR’s display and distribution of content

NPR.org Story

NPR.org Player

Mobile Apps/Sites

NPR on MPR and WBUR

NPR on iGoogle

NPR’s API – Query Generator

NPR API : Growth of Requests 40 35

Requests in Millions

30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Nov-08 Dec08

Jan-09 Feb09

Mar-09 Apr-09 May09

Jun-09 Jul-09

Aug09

Sep09

M onths


Spike in August due to launch of new NPR.org with new Player, NPR News iPhone app, new WBUR.org and new MPR.org (all launched in late July)

NPR API : Distribution of Output Formats Atom JSON

JavaScript HTML

PodcastRSS MediaRSS RSS

NPRML

FORMAT NPRML

% 83.1

TOTAL 77,695,041

RSS

7.4

7,015,685

HTML

3.1

2,992,407

JavaScript

2.8

2,684,500

Media RSS

1.8

1,733,203

Podcast

1.1

1,039,747

JSON

.38

357,969

Atom

.01

11,953

The Future of the API


Releasing over time








Video Blogs Improved image availability and sizing capabilities User comments and ratings More station content PBCore NewsML

Questions?



Daniel Jacobson [email protected]





To see the API: http://www.npr.org/api To follow the API development: http://www.npr.org/blogs/inside