NPR EverywhereThe power of <flexible> content

Zach Brand : @zbrandSr. Director Technology & StrategyNPR, Digital Media

“From NPR News in Washington..” –Jack Speer et al

“From NPR News in Washington..” –Jack Speer et al

X 35M / Week

X 784

“Please give generously” –Your local station

!=

NPR Digital Media

API

So Why Should YOU Care about Flexible Content?

A) Staying Relevant Is Getting Much Harder

Step 1

Step 2You

0 - 50

> 1,000,000,000

> 800,000

B) It’s Worked Well For Us…

NPR News iPhone app

NPR News Android app

Relaunched NPRmobile site

NPRiPad app

NPR MusiciPhone app

API launchedin 2008, at

OSCON

NPR MusicRemix

NPR BlogsMade API Friendly

Facebook Integration

Player 2.0

Homepage Improvements

Story PageImprovements

Architectural Philosophies

Avoid LOTR Syndrome

Content & Technology Are Inextricably Linked

COPE (Create Once Publish Everywhere)

- COPE drives all other architectural decisions

Content Management Tools & Presentation Layers

Understand the Atom

- Story is the Atom for NPR

- Stories contain ‘Assets’ (i.e. text, audio, video, images, etc.)

- Stories belong to ‘Lists’

It Is Better To Be Incomplete Than Inaccurate

Good ToolsGood PeopleGood Content

1997(No CMS)

2003(CMS)

2005(CMS)

2008(API)

NPR’s Target Audiences for the API Ourselves

- Supports the entire infrastructure of our new site

- Improvements to CMS to enable custom feeds by Editorial and Design

Stations- Enables us to serve content to our member stations more easily

- Enables our stations to serve their communities better

Partners- Creates new opportunities because - easy to implement with very little integration cost

- Makes existing opportunities easier to maintain and grow

Public- Engages the community – part of NPR’s Public Service Mission

- Lots of great widgets, tools, sites built using the API

Launch Expectations:Improve development efficiencies for NPR.org

Some sophisticated stations will use the API

Partner integration will be easier

The public will do amazing things with the API

“Learning a slew of technical skills isn't the answer, it's just part of the journalism equation.” -http://10000words.net/

“From Washington DC… this is NPR”

NPR Addict iPhone App

System Architecture Supporting COPE

System Architecture Supporting COPE

System Architecture Supporting COPE

JavaJSP

Struts

System Architecture Supporting COPE

R / WMySQL

System Architecture Supporting COPE

R / OMySQLCluster

NoSQL-likeXML

Repository

System Architecture Supporting COPE

PHP5

SimpleXMLPHP5

Inside the API’s “Black Box”

Life and Times of Flexible Content

NPR CMS

NPR API

NPR.org

HTML5 / Tablet Site

NPR.org Audio Player

iPhone App Android AppMobile Site

Google Chrome Extension

iGoogle Gadget

KQED.org

WBUR.org

Connecticut Public Broadcasting

Photos Courtesy Derik Elis, CBTV

NPR API

CPTV’s Drupal Based CMS

Website

What We Learned

“I had to actually purchase a book to learn the API and write the client.” Shawn Fanning of Napster Fame

Yeah, About That Chart….

Figuring it out…

Election RelatedTraffic Bumps

Station Content in the NPR API (today)

KLCC Displaying N3 Stories from NPR API

WBUR Displaying N3 Story from NPR API

A thousand words of COPE

Make it ALL reusable

API Keys and Consumption by Audience

Output Format Distribution

This distribution chart is from June 2009 and does not include NPR consumption.

We believe the distribution still applies today.

Page Views to NPR Tech Center

NPR Story API : Requests per Month

> 20 requests to the Story API every second

Launch Expectations:Improvements to development efficiencies for NPR.org

Some sophisticated stations will use the API

Partner integration will be easier

The public will do amazing things with the API

Actual Results:NPR dramatically improved development efficiencies

NPR’s mobile strategy took off

Some sophisticated stations have used the API

Partner integration has been easier

•API has facilitated business development opportunities

The public has done some interesting things

•Open Source NPR projects have been possible

NPR Android App

http://code.google.com/p/npr-android-app/

What’s Next (or at least still causing us problems)

Station Content in the NPR API (today)

Public Media API (future)

Challenges Ahead

•Extending to Network Use

•Performance•Caching

•Rights Management•Pagination

•Which Presentation Layers to Focus On•Laser or Shotgun?

Questions?

•Npr.org/blogs/inside•API: npr.org/API•Twitter: @zbrand•Email zbrand@npr.org