How NPR is Embracing Open Source and Open APIs

Daniel Jacobson Will Talk About the NPR Open API at OSCON

News providers, like most content providers, are interested in having their content seen by as many people as possible. But unlike many news organizations, whose primary concern may be monetizing their content, National Public Radio is interested in turning it into a resource for people to use in new and novel ways as well. Daniel Jacobson is in charge making that content available to developers and end users in a wide variety of formats, and has been doing so using an Open API that NPR developed specifically for that purpose. Daniel will talk about how the project is going at OSCON, the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. Here's a preview of what he'll be talking about.

James Turner: Can you start by explaining what NPR Digital Media is and what your role with it involves?

Daniel Jacobson: Sure. NPR is a radio organization, of course, and the Digital Media Group, of which I'm a part, handles, essentially as I describe it, everything that is publishable by NPR that does not go to a radio. So that includes the website, podcasts, API, mobile sites, HD radios, anything that has some sort of visual component to it. So Digital Media as a group is responsible for producing that content, producing all of those distribution channels, managing all of those relationships.

James Turner: And what is your particular role there?

Daniel Jacobson: I manage the application development team that is responsible for all the functional aspects of all of the systems, which includes our CMS, all of the templating engines for the website, for the API, for the podcasts, all of the engines that drive that.

James Turner: Now NPR is an organization that consists of a lot of member stations kind of flying in close formation. What's your relationship with the content producers? To what extent do they have their own stuff, and to what extent do you work together?

Daniel Jacobson: Those member stations are really exactly that; they are members of NPR. They essentially buy NPR programming. They're distinct organizations from us. NPR is a content producer and distributor. They buy our programming and broadcast it out to the world. They also have their own corresponding web teams that can take NPR content and also produce their own content and create their own websites. So in the Digital Media Team, we take a lot of pride and effort in providing services that help those member stations better serve their communities and their listeners and audiences, using NPR content and using their own content. We work with them to try and satisfy their missions. And to the extent that they need NPR services or content, we work hard to try and provide those. The API is one massive step, I think, in making it much easier for them to do what they need to do without a whole lot of intervention from us, where previously they would have to pull in content in much more arduous ways. So the API, I think, is a step in the right direction to make it more of a self-service model.

James Turner: Since you've mentioned the API, that's what you're going to be talking about at OSCON. We've already talked to the New York Times and the way they're opening up their content through APIs. What are you doing with yours?

Daniel Jacobson: Well, we launched ours formally at OSCON last year. And at that time, we essentially opened up our entire archive. So anything that you can get on npr.org is available through the API, to the extent that we have the rights to distribute it. There are some rights restrictions, for example, for receiving photos or stories from sources that we have not cleared rights to redistribute. Those are getting suppressed through a rights filtering engine on our API. Everything else that you can get on npr.org, you can get through the API. That includes full text. It includes images, audio, video, everything like that. Throughout the last year, we have added more features. We included the layer of "mix your own podcast", for example, which allows people to not only get the content in audio form, but also to download it as a podcast-type item. And all of that is available through search terms or totally customized queries. So what the API really does is it enables people to take the content, make widgets, or do whatever they want with essentially everything that is on npr.org and get to audiences that we are not getting to.

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Four short links: 8 July 2009

1. Stop Whining About Facebook's Redesign (Slate) -- How can I be so sure that you'll learn to like the redesign? Because you did the last two times Facebook did it. The conclusion is that sites don't say why they're redesigning, and that causes the resistance.
2. C# and CLI under the Community Promise (Miguel de Icaza) -- Microsoft have announced they won't pursue patents relating to C# or the .NET Common Language Infrastructure (CLI): It is important to note that, under the Community Promise, anyone can freely implement these specifications with their technology, code, and solutions. You do not need to sign a license agreement, or otherwise communicate to Microsoft how you will implement the specifications. Good news for Mono and other .NET-compatible projects.
3. app-engine-patch -- a patch that lets most of Django work on Google App Engine. (via caseywest on Twitter)
4. Scope -- talk by Matt Webb, given to Reboot 2009. Every ten slides I sigh happily as new mental connections slide into place, as only Matt can make them. Worth it just for finding this Stewart Brand quote, "We are as gods and might as well get good at it." That one sentence could direct a lifetime of action.