ReadWriteWeb

Over the last several months we have mentioned how minimalist micro-blogging service Tumblr has attracted traditional media outlets. The New York-based startup has begun providing publisher-friendly features and even managed to snag former Newsweek editor Mark Coatney, who serves as a liaison for traditional media.

Today, National Public Radio (NPR) became the latest media group to join Tumblr, and I spoke with senior strategist Andy Carvin to find out how the organization plans to leverage the quickly growing platform.

National Public Radio first began offering its content via API nearly two years ago now and business, to say the least, has been booming.

According to a blog post today by NPR Director of Application Development Daniel Jacobson, the API delivered more than 1.1 billion stories last month, and almost 5 billion since tracking began six months ago.

You think the idea of user-generated content as a business model was invented in the Aughts? No way. Media outlets have been drawing on material created by amateurs, consumers and customers for generations and repackaging it for your entertainment.

Folksy as it may sound, our history is driven not strictly by the polished content produced by a class of citizens with a slew of degrees and many years of training - a surprisingly amount has been generated in a largely unfiltered form by the masses.

SXSW Interactive is just around the corner, so it's time to make your party plans for Austin, Texas! ReadWriteWeb's SXSW party - in partnership with PBS, NPR, and others - is happening on Sunday, March 14, from 9pm at KLRU's legendary Austin City Limits Studio. There will be shuttles to and from the Austin Hilton.

We invite you to enjoy some tex-mex, margaritas and live music with us! Also you'll network with the smart, cool people attending SXSW from ReadWriteWeb, PBS, NPR, Frontline, ITVS and Futurestates. This event is free to attend for all SXSW Interactive or Film badge holders.

This past weekend, public media enthusiasts, developers, and staffers from around the country met in Washington, D.C. for the first Public Media Camp. I was there on behalf of the Public Radio Exchange (PRX.org), where I produce EconomyStory.org, one of several new projects that fits neatly into public media's latest forays online.

While I'm willing to admit here that I went to yearbook camp and computer camp as a kid, this one might take the cake as far as camps that don't include S'mores and Kumbaya go.

Some newspapers scrambling to survive the internet condemn websites like Google News and the Huffington Post. Aggregators, they say, need to pay for the right to point to a newspaper's site. Public radio stations, on the other hand, face competition from the internet as well and are just as competitive between themselves as they are collaborative. Somehow, they've responded differently to new media. There may be no better example of that than an iPhone application built by several large public radio organizations and called Public Radio Player. The team behind the app launched a major new release this morning.

National Public Radio (NPR) here in the US has some great audio content and the offering got even better today with the release of a new "mix your own" podcast option. Users enter a list of categories and keywords and the NPR site dynamically generates an RSS feed you can subscribe to in iTunes or elsewhere. It's just the latest innovation built on top of the new NPR API.

The user experience is great and we think it makes NPR podcast content immediately more compelling. You get an instant preview of what will be in your feed and it's really easy to use.

What do you get when you move the head of digital media at one of the world's leading old-school press outfits into the CEO's office of an even hipper large music and news organization? We don't know, but we're excited to find out! Veteran media exec Vivian Schiller announced today that she's leaving her position as head of NewYorkTimes.com to become the new CEO of National Public Radio (NPR).

We're excited about it from a technology perspective, but media industry analyst and RWW Jobwire guest editor Sam Whitmore discusses the move in terms of what it means for the Times as a business as well over in the Jobwire Featured Hire of the Day (sponsored by VisualCV).