NPR Launches Nice Mobile Site
US public broadcaster National Public Radio has released a new mobile site that allows listeners to stream local, national and international radio pieces over their mobile phones. Available at m.npr.org, I used this service throughout the weekend and am very impressed. It's simple, powerful and it works.
NPR worked with mobile site developers Crisp to enable handset detection on their mobile site - visitors are able to stream segments through whatever audio software they have on their phones or by calling a dedicated phone number for each story. A general phone number also offers an IVR menu to select stories by voice. All in all, it's the kind of inclusive service you'd hope NPR would offer. The content is fresh, the audio quality acceptable, the experience good.
Also unsurprising, there's no ability to comment on the stories. There could be, but like too many other large organizations NPR would rather broadcast to you, give you new options to spread their content through social sites like Del.icio.us or Digg and be done with you. Accepting comments isn't easy for a large organization to do, and there are doubtless countless people who would use the opportunity to accuse NPR of being too liberal. I find it quite the opposite, personally, witness any story about agriculture for example and you'll see a complete lack of critical thought regarding an industry that frequently underwrites public broadcasting in the US. That, however, is the price that has to be paid to really leverage new tools on the internet. There's too much potential value in the comments from big media's audience to remain satisfied with hearing what these media outlets alone have to say.
Criticisms aside, I'm already becoming a regular user of the NPR mobile service less than a week after it's launched. Readers interested in other mobile radio services can see Mundo Radio and Melodeo.
FOLLOW RWW ON TWITTER
RECENT JOBS
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
Hi Marshall,
Regarding NPR Mobile, we decided to start by focusing on what's been regarded as our biggest strength, which is of course, audio. So for the rollout of the mobile site, emphasis was placed on increasing opportunities for the public to access our audio streams, including the latest newscasts and feature stories. That's particularly true regarding the IVR system, since there are lots of folks out there who might not have the data plans to stream audio from their phones, or whose phones lack built-in players.
Meanwhile, NPR is in the midst of a variety of online activities to go beyond the traditional broadcasting model and engage with the audience more directly. We‚Äôve launched over half a dozen blogs in less than a year, including two that have served as ‚Äúrough cuts‚Ä? for new shows in development, inviting the public to interact with the show producers as they roll out the programs for the first time. This type of interaction gives the producers valuable input prior to a show‚Äôs launch, while also giving the public a taste for what will go on air when they‚Äôre ready for prime time, and how they can be involved in it. The first rough cuts blog, Tell Me More, began broadcasting this spring, while the second one, The Bryant Park Project, is premiering next week. The show Talk of the Nation has also embraced blogging enthusiastically, giving the public another outlet to discuss show topics and ask questions to interview subjects. One of our oldest blogs, My Cancer, has an active community of participants; it was also just nominated for best commentary from the Online News Association. Another one of our blogs, Ketzel Levine‚Äôs Talking Plants, has an active Flickr group, which Ketzel uses to solicit user photos and stories for the blog. We‚Äôve also started experimenting with Facebook as well.
More generally, we're developing plans for deploying a greater variety of social media tools across the website in 2008, giving our shows the opportunity to form online communities and making it easier for the public to interact with each other and share their own content. We’re particularly looking forward to some of the resources we’ll be launching in relation to Election 2008. Stay tuned!
Posted by: andy carvin | September 26, 2007 6:42 AM
Great! Thanks for letting our readers and I know about all that, Andy. I still think launching a web service without comments is a bummer but it's good to hear that there will likely be some eventually! NPR is a huge organization with lots of brand cache to preserve (in theory, though I think if you talk to a lot of people on the Left they'd say it needs dramatic moves in order for its credibility to be saved, in fact) but as huge orgs go, it sounds like the pace of change over there is mind blowing. That's great, I wish you the best of luck, offer all my support - and reserve my right to critique the shortcomings of new projects that come out. That said, I love NPR Mobile otherwise.
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick | September 26, 2007 7:17 AM
I've been using NPR mobile for quite some time now.
It's been very useful for my 2-hour-long commute each day!
Thanks NPR! You did a great job!
a happy NPR mobile user
Posted by: James | September 27, 2007 7:30 AM