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.

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First, Jacobson shows the number of API requests made over the past six months, which he explains does not translate directly to the number of stories delivered.

According to Jacobson, “The big jump in total API requests from July to August are due to the launch of many new products in July. Among them are the new NPR.org, the NPR.org Flash Player, the NPR News iPhone app, WBUR’s new web site, and Minnesota Public Radio’s new site.”

Next, we see the number of stories delivered, which turns out to be an equally impressive chart.

NPR’s API allows outside parties to have access to audio content dating back to 1995, consisting of more than 250,000 stories in more than 5,000 different aggregations. The results are returned in a number of formats, from RSS, MediaRSS, JSON and Atom to NPRML, a specialized format that accounts for 86% of content distribution. Jacobson notes, however, that an overwhelming majority of content delivered by NPR’s API is being sent to affiliated sites and stations.

While some media companies, such as News Corp, attempt to block their content from distribution, the NPR API seems to be making access to its content widespread. Jacobson includes a slideshow at the end of his post that shows just how many places and ways NPR content is being accessed as a result of its API.

To use NPR content via API, all you need to do is register with NPR and agree to its terms. The company says that “we want you to use, enjoy and share the journalism and programming produced by NPR and participating NPR member stations, but it is also important to respect the rights and integrity of the work and of the dedicated people who created it.”

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It’s been about five months since Rupert Murdoch first claimed that he would block search engines from News Corp. content, and even if not a lot’s happened as a result, Murdoch hasn’t let the matter slide.  He issued another warning yesterday while at the National Press Club.

Do you think Murdoch will follow through on his threats?  Let us know by commenting.

"We are going to stop people like Google or Microsoft or whoever from taking stories for nothing . . . there is a law of copyright and they recognise it," Murdoch said according to Paul Harris.

The chairman and CEO of News Corp. later added, "They take [news content] for nothing.  They have got this very clever business model."

Of course, Murdoch didn’t make any fresh announcements regarding News Corp. content and pay walls, or establish any sort of timeframe for when he might do so.  So if these statements have any effect at all, they might weaken his position by highlighting the fact that Murdoch hasn’t taken action so far.

It’s possible that these comments will draw out a few more supporters, though, giving Murdoch a more defensible stance if he ever does flip the switch.  The situation will bear watching.

Tell us in the comments section what you make of Murdoch’s position.

UPDATE: In a new WebProNews video, Abby Johnson provides a good perspective on the conflict between publishers and search engines, citing recent events and cutting to an interview with Danny Sullivan.  You can watch the video below.

It’s been about five months since Rupert Murdoch first claimed that he would block search engines from News Corp. content, and even if not a lot’s happened as a result, Murdoch hasn’t let the matter slide.  He issued another warning yesterday while at the National Press Club.

"We are going to stop people like Google or Microsoft or whoever from taking stories for nothing . . . there is a law of copyright and they recognise it," Murdoch said according to Paul Harris.

The chairman and CEO of News Corp. later added, "They take [news content] for nothing.  They have got this very clever business model."

Of course, Murdoch didn’t make any fresh announcements regarding News Corp. content and pay walls, or establish any sort of timeframe for when he might do so.  So if these statements have any effect at all, they might weaken his position by highlighting the fact that Murdoch hasn’t taken action so far.

It’s possible that these comments will draw out a few more supporters, though, giving Murdoch a more defensible stance if he ever does flip the switch.  The situation will bear watching.

The Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio (NPR) will be launching custom-built iPad-only websites next month when the new Apple slate computer known as the iPad is made available for sale. Both sites will automatically detect when web surfers arrive via an iPad device and will then show those visitors a special version of the site, customized exclusively for the iPad. How exactly will these sites compare to the web pages regular site visitors see? There’s just one difference: they won’t feature any Adobe Flash technology.

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NPR’s New iPad Site: Entirely Flash Free

According to reports from MediaMemo, NPR is removing all traces of Adobe Flash, which powers its website’s media and graphics, from its iPad-only version. Although many news organizations use Flash to display multimedia presentations and audio and video content, NPR in particular was going to be heavily affected by Apple’s refusal to support Flash on the new iPad devices. That’s because a key feature on NPR’s website is its Flash-based audio player, something that’s featured on nearly every webpage site-wide.

Kinsey Wilson, senior vice president and general manager of NPR Digital Media, recently told Poynter that their developers decided to work around the problem by implementing an HTML5-based player instead. Wilson also noted that the company has a “launch sponsor” for the iPad-only site, since it won’t be able to support web ads, which are often coded in Flash.

WSJ: A Flash-Free Front Page

The Wall Street Journal, a News Corp. property, is also building an iPad-only version of their site – well, actually just an iPad-only front page. Unlike NPR’s iPad site, which will be 100% Flash-free, WSJ visitors who follow links deeper into the website will soon discover that not all its page have been converted. Here, they’ll run into the soon-to-be-infamous “blue box,” the lego-like symbol that appears where a Flash content should have been.

There aren’t any demos or mockups of these new websites available, so it’s unknown at this time if they’re being changed in other ways to accommodate iPad visitors. That is to say, it’s unknown if they will be exact replicas of the non-iPad versions but just with the Flash content removed, or if they will perhaps sport an entirely new design.

Start of a New Trend?

With these two leading media companies making this sort of change, it’s reasonable to imagine that others will soon follow. And while iPad owners will certainly appreciate the adjustments – that blue lego is such an eyesore, after all – the need for so many custom versions of the same site may become a burden on businesses who need to reach a wide audience.

Today, companies are already tasked with creating a traditional website, a mobile website and sometimes a customized mobile website designed just for iPhone visitors. Now there’s the iPad-only website to code for and soon there may be another one, too. Recent news reports state that Amazon is working on a new web browser just for their Kindle e-Reader. Will that be yet another website needing its own custom version?

So Many Versions of the Same Site!

It’s bad enough that the mobile application ecosystem itself is so fragmented – developers have several platforms to code for from the iPhone to Android, plus Palm, Windows Mobile – including the new Windows Phone 7 Series, Symbian and Blackberry, to name a few. Now it seems they’ll have a number of unique mobile devices to support as well?

The web was supposed to be the one unifying “platform” that works anywhere, on any device, no matter what hardware is used to access it. But thanks to varying screen sizes and differing feature sets (most notably Apple’s refusal to allow Flash on their mobile devices), those who want to provide compelling content to all their site visitors will be forced to re-code their site multiple times. Publishers without the resources to do so will have to make a tough choice – remove the unsupported content and the media that makes it slow to load on mobile devices entirely? Or leave it be and risk losing their mobile audience instead? That’s a “Sophie’s Choice” no one wants to make. Unfortunately, in a down economy where money is tight, that may be just what happens.

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In a recent interview, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar told technology reporter Om Malik that his company was “very bullish” on mobile, even going so far as to say “we will embrace every device.” That’s a funny statement, considering that the company has been touting that same sentiment for years but has yet to launch anything for mobile, be it an app or simply a mobile-ready streaming site.

Now, with the launch of the iPad just around the corner, the rumors of an iPhone/iPad Hulu app are rising up again. But there’s a bigger mobile web than just the one accessible via Apple products, and that may be what Hulu has its eye on now. “We don’t think about one device only,” Kilar said.

However, going mobile is going to be a challenge for Hulu. And it’s not as simple as re-encoding a few videos, no matter what you may have heard.

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Problem A: Hulu’s Business Model Needs Work

The fact that Hulu exists at all is somewhat of an amazement. Through tenuous connections with major studios, the collaborative, experimental effort to bring streaming TV to web (and make it profitable) has managed to attract a number of users in the U.S. Although the audience size varies widely depending on who’s counting, the company has managed to become a household name thanks to eye-catching commercials on NBC featuring actors from the network’s top shows.

But there’s a problem facing Hulu: in-video advertising is, apparently, not as profitable as once hoped. In fact, it’s just too expensive, says Marc Ruxin, the Chief Innovation Officer for ad agency network McCann Worldgroup. Hulu has been aware of this problem, though, and has been hinting towards the launch of a subscription service, with News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch telling an investor conference last fall that the company, was looking at “adding subscription services and pay per view” options. Through the subscription model, Hulu could potentially generate enough revenue to keep the studios happy and maybe even encourage them to offer up more programming.

Unfortunately, the subscription model has yet to launch and the profits from video ads have been far too lean for some Hulu participants. Recently, for example, Viacom pulled two of the top shows – The Daily Show and the Colbert Report – from the site, claiming that they simply weren’t earning enough money via the advertising model currently in place. Viacom Inc. Chief Executive Officer Philippe Dauman said that “on the current economic model for Hulu, there’s just not much in it for us to continue at this time.”

And so the situation degrades.

So what is Hulu doing now? It’s trying to attract more viewers to its site with the launch of “If I Can Dream,” an original series that premiered earlier this month. The fact that they’re now making the foray into this sort of online programming is somewhat worrying. After all, if hit video webisodes alone made for a profitable service, then YouTube would have achieved profitability ages ago, instead of (maybe) getting there this year, five years post-launch. Let’s face it, original programming is a bonus for Hulu users, but it’s not going to take the place of hot shows like the now-departed Comedy Central fare.

Problem B: Will Apple Allow a Hulu App on the iPhone/iPad?

Another problem? Hulu has been planning to delay its iPhone app launch until a subscription model was in place, according to earlier reports. But with the biggest names pulling out, subscriptions could be a harder sell. Still, even if Hulu was able to make subscriptions happen, there are no guarantees that Apple would ever allow them into the iTunes store, especially considering they’re offering a competing product. (See: Google Voice banishment from the iPhone, for example).

Meanwhile, Hulu’s online site doesn’t work in the iPhone’s web browser because it was built in Flash. If Apple rejects the Hulu app from iTunes, the company’s other option is encoding all their site’s content in H.264 and make that available via HTML5, the new web language that offers streaming video sans plugin. Since this has already been done, a Hulu app could launch a player on the iPhone or iPad, if, of course, Apple allowed them to do so. If not, then a mobile site would have to be built in HTML5 – video controls, overall UI, advertisements and all. That’s no simple process.

What’s Hulu Doing Now?

So is this the plan Hulu has decided on now? It’s hard to know for sure. Like Apple, the company is incredibly secretive about their plans and product roadmap, often refusing to respond to calls and emails entirely, even to say “no comment.”

And yet, the Hulu iPhone app exists. We’ve spoken to someone who’s seen it…but that was ages ago. For all we know, iPhone/iPad app plans have since been scrapped to work on a new solution that works around any potential Apple restrictions. But sources inside Hulu have clammed up lately, meaning they’re either building something top, top secret…or perhaps nothing at all.

We hope it’s the former, because frankly, an iPad without Hulu is a sad, sad affair. But will we ever see a real app? At this point, we’re not holding our breath.

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Although a few months have passed since the last big flareup, News Corp. may still be willing to go to war with Google.  A fresh report indicates that Rupert Murdoch is indeed prepared to take the search giant to court, and has been talking to Microsoft about an exclusive deal, too.

Gabriel Sherman recently published a long profile of Murdoch for New York magazine, and within the profile, quoted someone he described as "a senior media executive."  This person said with regards to the CEO and chairman of News Corp., "He’s pretty tightly wound up over Google and has been ready to sue them.  He doesn’t trust them at all."

Then there was another interesting tidbit: apparently the Chief Digital Officer of News Corp., Jonathan Miller, "has also been in talks with Microsoft about possibly pulling all of News Corp.’s content from Google and signing an exclusive distribution deal with Bing."

Unfortunately, potential timetables weren’t outlined; there’s no telling whether Murdoch is willing to spend years negotiating with Google, or if he’ll unleash the lawyers next week.

Still, it sounds like Murdoch’s statements about blocking Google weren’t just so much bluster or a bluff.  A showdown over whether or not online news should be free remains possible.

After a seven-week-long hiatus, Google is now hosting content from the Associated Press again. The two have had a deal in place in the past, but AP content quietly went missing from Google, and that very fact became a topic of wide discussion last week. Now the deal appears to be renewed to some uncertain extent.

The statement Google has given on the matter says, "We have a licensing agreement with the Associated Press that permits us to host its content on Google properties such as Google News. The licensing agreement is the subject of ongoing discussion so we won’t be commenting further at this time."

An AP spokesman is quoted as saying, "We have nothing to add to Google’s statement."

If you’ve followed the online news industry much, we probably don’t have to tell you that Google and the AP have had a somewhat complicated, if not rocky relationship.

Last week, Yahoo reached its own deal with the AP. Financial terms of that agreement were not disclosed.

This week, the AP promoted editor and correspondent Ted Anthony to Assistant Managing Editor. He is said to have been involved in the development of the news organization’s social media practices.

Related Articles:

> Mark Cuban Takes Murdoch-esque Stance on Google

> News Corp. Blocks Content from News Aggregation Site

> Do You Have the "Right" to Link?

> Murdoch On Blocking Search Engines: "I Think We Will"

> Murdoch’s War with the Aggregators

> Is it Really Crazy to Block Google?

Update: Cuban has now posted a lengthy explanation of his stance on Google. Essentially, he appears to view Google as helpful if not necesary for lesser known brands, but as a bad business decision for big names in the news industry.

Oriinal Article: The always outspoken Mark Cuban has contributed his thoughts on the whole news aggregation/Google News/publisher debate, one that is most often credited to Rupert Murdoch. It appears that Cuban has a similar opinion on the matter.

Cuban spoke at a keynote address this week at the AlwaysOn OnMedia NYC 2010 Conference, and is quoted by numerous sources as calling Google in particular a "vampire."

"When you think about vampires, they just suck on your blood," he is quoted as saying, reportedly telling newspapers and other publishers to "show some balls" and block Google News and, "There’s absolutely no reason for you guys to be indexed on Google News … if they don’t pay you."

Michael Arrington points out that at the TechCrunch50 conference in 2008, Cuban said he’d like to be an investor in TechMeme, which provides a similar service to Google News and other aggregators. In addition, Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land notes (in great detail) that Cuban is an investor in Mahalo, which actually "touts to advertisers how it taps into Google to generate page views."

While on the topic of the news industry debates, the topic of charging for news is always a conversation starter. The Wall Street Journal has taken down its pay wall for the day, giving users access to articles that would otherwise require a subscription to access. The effort comes as the result of a sponsorship from Acura (Via SIA).
 

Related Articles:

> News Corp. Blocks Content from News Aggregation Site

> Do You Have the "Right" to Link?

> Murdoch On Blocking Search Engines: "I Think We Will"

> Murdoch’s War with the Aggregators

> Is it Really Crazy to Block Google?

The always outspoken Mark Cuban has contributed his thoughts on the whole news aggregation/Google News/publisher debate, one that is most often credited to Rupert Murdoch. It appears that Cuban has a similar opinion on the matter.

Cuban spoke at a keynote address this week at the AlwaysOn OnMedia NYC 2010 Conference, and is quoted by numerous sources as calling Google in particular a "vampire."

"When you think about vampires, they just suck on your blood," he is quoted as saying, reportedly telling newspapers and other publishers to "show some balls" and block Google News and, "There’s absolutely no reason for you guys to be indexed on Google News … if they don’t pay you."

Michael Arrington points out that at the TechCrunch50 conference in 2008, Cuban said he’d like to be an investor in TechMeme, which provides a similar service to Google News and other aggregators. In addition, Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land notes (in great detail) that Cuban is an investor in Mahalo, which actually "touts to advertisers how it taps into Google to generate page views."

While on the topic of the news industry debates, the topic of charging for news is always a conversation starter. The Wall Street Journal has taken down its pay wall for the day, giving users access to articles that would otherwise require a subscription to access. The effort comes as the result of a sponsorship from Acura (Via SIA).
 

Related Articles:

> News Corp. Blocks Content from News Aggregation Site

> Do You Have the "Right" to Link?

> Murdoch On Blocking Search Engines: "I Think We Will"

> Murdoch’s War with the Aggregators

> Is it Really Crazy to Block Google?

The companies behind search engines sometimes try to attract more traffic by advertising.  Establishing a partnership is another strategy, as is improving the actual search results.  Microsoft might be ready to try something a little different, however, as a new report’s indicated that the company is interested in making Google’s results worse.

Remember the days when arguments about search engines centered on the size of their indices?  Well, according to Matthew Garrahan and Richard Waters, Microsoft does.  "Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company’s being paid to ‘de-index’ its news websites from Google," the pair reported.

They then continued, "Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine."

This idea seems plausible enough, given that Microsoft has a history of paying for users (think of its popular and long-running cashback program).  There’s also the simple fact that Microsoft, with its market cap of $263 billion, could possibly outspend Google (which has a market cap of $181 billion) if a bidding war erupted.

What’s more difficult to say is whether the idea is any good.  There’s no word on how much money News Corp. and other publishers would receive, and it’s anybody’s guess how many searchers would switch engines to retain easy access to their content.

Related Articles:

> 80% Of Consumers Would Not Pay For Content

> Murdoch On Blocking Search Engines: "I Think We Will"

> Google Okay With Blocking News Corp.

In a recent interview we wrote about this morning, Rupert Murdoch indicated that News Corp. may block search engines from indexing its sites.  Now, it doesn’t exactly look like Google’s going to offer money to him (or throw a fit) in response, as the search giant’s more or less replied by saying "fine."

Actually, depending on what sort of tone you attribute to them, some of the comments made to Emma Barnett came closer to "it’s your funeral."  A spokesman told her, "Google News and web search are a tremendous source of promotion for news organisations, sending them about 100,000 clicks every minute."

And later, there was something approaching "make my day."  The spokesman said, "If publishers want their content to be removed from Google News specifically all they need to do is tell us."

So it should be interesting to see what happens.  Judging solely by the comments on our earlier piece and Barnett’s article, it seems that Murdoch might wind up missing "search people" (as he referred to them) a lot more than searchers would miss News Corp.’s content.

Pay walls have worked in some specific instances, though, and since any disappearing act News Corp. pulled would almost certainly receive tons of mainstream media coverage, the publicity-generating value of the unprecedented move is interesting to consider.

Related Articles:

> Murdoch On Blocking Search Engines: "I Think We Will"

> MySpace To Miss $100 Million From Google Search Deal

> Murdoch Says Newspapers Must Charge For Online Content

As you may know, Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of News Corp., is saying he may block search engines from accessing the organization’s content. He expressed this notion in a recent interview.

If Murdoch were to act upon this, it would mean theoretically that you would no longer be able to find Wall Street Journal, New York Post, etc. content on Google. Of course that would be in a world where scraped content isn’t frequently crawled by search engines.

If Murdoch were to pull all of the original content, he would risk all of his content just being found on other sites through Google (or Yahoo or Bing or wherever). The reality is that illegal scraping will continue to exist, and search engines aren’t perfect. There is a great chance that they will still crawl the content, without even knowing it was originally produced by News Corp. properties. With News Corp.’s content in the search engines, at least the engines will be able to place that content higher in results where it would be more likley to drown out the scraped versions.

This week, a Google spokesman told Emma Barnett at the Telegraph, "Google News and web search are a tremendous source of promotion for news organisations, sending them about 100,000 clicks every minute."

and…

"If publishers want their content to be removed from Google News specifically all they need to do is tell us."

So in other words, Google is fine with Murdoch pulling out. News Corp.’s the one that stands to lose more from that. Experian Hitwise shared some rather interesting data with WebProNews:

- On a weekly basis Google and Google news are the top traffic providers for WSJ.com account for over 25% of WSJ.com’s traffic. 
 
- According to Experian Hitwise data, over 44% of WSJ.com visitors coming from Google are "new" users who haven’t visited the domain in the last 30 days.

- Twitter and Facebook sent 4% of US visits to News and Media sites in October 2009. (via @Hitwise_US)

It’s interesting to look at the above graphs and note that WSJ.com is getting considerably more traffic from Google and Google news than in years past. It will also be interesting to see if Murdoch goes through with pulling content from Google.

As it stands right now, it is still easy to go to Google News and find content from the Wall Street Journal. If that and other News Corp.- owned publications are removed, that can only mean increased traffic for similar sites.

Related Articles:

> Murdoch On Blocking Search Engines: "I Think We Will"

> Google Okay With Blocking News Corp.

> Murdoch Says Newspapers Must Charge For Online Content

> Obvious: People Don’t Want to Pay for Online News

> Google Trying to Differentiate Between Blogs and News?

> Can SEO Help Save the Publishing Industry?

> Reuters Happy to Take Traffic the AP Doesn’t Want

Last week, rumor had it that MySpace was about to launch their long-awaited MySpace email service. It didn’t happen last week, but it’s starting to happen now. The company is rolling it out. It could be several weeks until you have access to MySpace Mail, but trust that it is on the way if you don’t already have it.

The offering makes for an interesting move on MySpace’s part, and one that could be a huge success or a huge flop. It’s no secret that MySpace has felt the pressure of competition from Facebook, which continues to gain users left and right.

MySpace is in something of a rebuilding process, as indicated by News Corp’s Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller. MySpace email could end up being a significant factor in future success. The keyword is could.

A few things that won’t work to MySpace’s advantage:

1. Most people are probably comfortable with their current email services.

2. Sharing on Facebook is reported to have overtaken sharing by email by at least one firm

3. Lots of people have abandoned their MySpace pages in favor of Facebook accounts

4. Email is not a new concept, and you have to wonder how many people it will attract

A few things that could work to MySpace’s advantage:

1. MySpace still has a lot of loyal users, and many of them might love the idea of having an @myspace.com address.

2. Facebook doesn’t have email addresses.

3. MySpace plans on getting much more involved with gaming, which could attract a lot of users, which in turn could attract them to MySpace email addresses.

4. It has a nice list of features like: unlimited file storage, the ability to embed photos from user profiles or the desktop with one click, the ability to send and receive music and videos as attachments (good considering how great of a role music and video play on MySpace), etc.

It will be very interesting to see if MySpace is able to turn an old idea like email into a new attraction. Will you be checking out MySpace mail? Share your thoughts here.

News Corp. Chief Digital Officer of News Corp. Jonathan Miller sat down with Fox Business in a video interview from a tech conference, and talked about MySpace’s future, among other things. The interview can be viewed here:

Miller  talks about how the company plans to shift the social network into more of an entertainment portal as Facebook has become quite a fierce competitor in terms of social communication on the web. Not that MySpace is abandoning that, but they are looking to get into more areas of entertainment, and according to Miller, part of this strategy will be offering some kind of gaming portal, where users can go and discover new games, and find people to play with. He makes it clear that he is talking about video games and not gambling.

He says MySpace needs to get back to being involved with more aspects of popular culture, and needs to be cleaned up to provide a fast and clean user experience. This is probably a good idea, because usually when people complain about MySpace (at least in my experience), it is about sloppy and unattractive profile pages.

Miller didn’t exactly say they were abandoning this either, and in fact, MySpace has acknowledged in the past that they pride themselves on the free expression aspect of the MySpace profile page, but anything they can do to deliver a cleaner experience should work in the site’s favor. 

The gaming aspect could be a key to MySpace’s success though. Look at how much time people spend messing around with Facebook apps. If MySpace can generate some interest from solid games, it could be quite a big draw for many people. Miller notes that the three biggest activities online are communicating, search, and gaming.

Miller suggests that MySpace’s monetization in the future will be primarily ad-supported, and he says that there is a major migration of ad dollars to the web. He says the more rich media there is online, the more ad dollars will follow. MySpace plans to remain a major player.