NPR API update

I've posted about the NPR API before, but it's been awhile so I thought I'd post, with permission, an excerpt from an update that was sent to NPR member stations yesterday.  It's from Kinsey Wilson, who heads up digital media, and Daniel Jacobson, who leads the API effort.

We wanted to share some good news about the use of the NPR API. The volume of content served by the API continues to grow and more stations are making use of all it has to offer. The API is now serving up 44 million requests per month to stations, the public and NPR products (compared to fewer than 5 million in June of last year) -- demonstrating its ability to meet both the diverse needs and day-to-day working demands of the system. Stations such as WBUR and SCPR are now putting NPR stories, audio segments and photos up on their sites via the API. And WBUR is displaying full transcripts with stories. ... WBUR's smart use of the API (together with stepped up local news coverage and a well-executed redesign) has contributed a big increase in traffic over the past six months.

While use of the API to display NPR content is one very visible measure of success, we're about to hit another milestone in the development of the API that could have an even bigger impact on our efforts to work more effectively together. The pilot phase of the so-called "API Ingest" project is coming to a close, and we're getting ready to throw the switch and start the flow of station content into the system.

Five public radio producers (OPB, Northwest News Network, KQED, WBUR and WXPN) have participated in the pilot over the last five months. They worked with us to develop and then test the capability of the NPR API to take in (“ingest”) their content. If all goes as planned, beginning next week, everyone should be able to gain access to content from OPB and Northwest News Network via the API, with content from the remaining three stations to follow shortly thereafter. Going forward, these tests will in turn put Public Interactive in a stronger position to provide this service more

broadly to the station community.

 

[snip]

--Dennis