It also works on Blackberry – Here is the NPR Download page.

Staci Kramer’s article is very comprehensive and will show you the direction of the strategy in detail.

National Public Radio is already a leader in podcasting. But a free NPR News iPhone app that launched Saturday night opens up a new dimension for the network and its member stations with live and on-demand mobile streaming. It’s also the first app to make reading the news and listening to it equally important, providing full-text coverage along with audio. In addition to NPR’s own programs and those it distributes, the app includes direct access to local shows from more than 600 member stations live and on demand.

Here is Scott Simon with a tour

Here is more on this by Ben Parr for Atlanta Internet Marketing

NPR News [iTunes link], which just became available for download, offers the same core features of other news apps like AP Mobile [iTunes link], primarily that you can browse the day’s big stories and read news articles in multiple categories. However, no other news app is linked to 1000+ NPR radio stations, news programs, and live streams, meaning you can listen to your news anywhere, anytime.

The App adds a strong audio layer to the news reading experience. While it’s simple enough to read the day’s top stories, you can also listen to most of the day’s top stories as well. A speaker icon next to most articles allows you to listen in on stories, and the playlist feature lets you queue up the stories you want to listen to if you’re busy, on-the-go, or just need to keep occupied.

The other key aspect of NPR News is that you can listen to any NPR program and any NPR station, including both live radio and past shows and podcasts. There has to be thousands upon thousands of hours of archived content available, not including the live radio. You can even pick out your station with GPS.

While many news organizations are floundering in the era of social media and even struggling to survive, NPR has thrived. Its innovative social strategies have served it well, and the NPR News iPhone app is just the latest solid innovation from the non-profit news organization.

Moderated by Renee Hopkins Callahan and sponsored by Microsoft, the discussion touched on topics ranging from:

• the challenges of today’s news business, NPR’s particular “business” and its need to “be its own disruptor”
• the “misalignment” of business models with real value in some of today’s media companies
• the role of technology in enhancing the user experience
• the importance of good editors and harnessing the collective intelligence of informed human beings
• framing disruption as not just a threat, but also as an opportunity
• the viability of charging for content and other forms of monetizing content
• the need to experiment *and* be willing to fail often
• the importance of innovation even, sometimes, in the absence of a clear business model

Click on the link below to access the full recording of the conversation – you can play it in place or download it as a podcast. And stay tuned to this space in the coming days for a trancript of the discussion as well as a highlights piece we’ll be publishing.

The show shed light for the first time on the complex crisis that confronts us. It gave birth to an entirely new kind of news show, Planet Money, that is extending all the lessons learned by the initiating show.

Here is a video of one of the co hosts – Adam Davidson (The other was Alex Blumberg of This American Life) Where Adam does his best to explain how making this show is changing his perspective on how journalists cover complex stories.

I think that in these few minutes, Adam explains the real revolution that has to take place in news.

He tells of his problem with space and time in conventional journalism. How can you talk about say a problem in mortgage backed securities in just 3 minutes when most know nothing abut them. But this is what people have to do in the time constraints of a audio or Video news program or in the space constraints available in a newspaper. Conventional news simply does not offer the time or the space to cope with complex things.

Linear news cannot inform us about complexity and complexity is our world now.

He talks about the problem of the “Authoritative Voice” the voice of God that is used. As a correspondent in Iraq, he and his wife could always tell the newbies – they were the ones who knew what was going on! It is now quite clear that even Henry Paulson did not know what was going on. So why should any journalist pretend that they did? Adam is saying that the right place for a journalist is to be a seeker on behalf of the public.

Top down voices of authority cannot illuminate complexity either. Only an invitation for conversation can unpack complexity’s meaning.

In the first few weeks of Planet Money, I talked with Adam and Laura about their plans and how they might be able to use a web based show. Here in summary is what he told me. In essence they were going to prepare a a big all you can eat buffet. It would suit every taste and would be open 24/7. (BPP was a diner)

• Daily the team would offer up nuggets, small dishes, of current and topical news that they found or that an ever expanding circle of “fans” as per BPP, would send in

• 3 – 4 times a week they would offer up a podcast, a longer form piece – a small audio magazine – this could be and is sliced and diced and added into the main magazines such as All Things Considered, News Broadcasts, Local shows, Morning Edition – what they learned with BPP is that it is better to add great new content into the blockbuster items rather than try and compete with your self. This way PM builds a wide audience by using the network effect. Adam also is a regular guest on the New Hour – thus PBS and NPR are getting closer as well

• Every 6 weeks or so – a long form show such as Giant Money in collaboration with TAL.

• The POV was always going to be – EXPLAIN! The presenters of the show would be representing us. They would start from a position of NOT KNOWING and not understanding the jargon. The irony is that even the so called experts have told Adam that they too have learned from the show. The problem being that they often know a lot about a little but also cannot see the larger whole. So the “VOICE” that we hear is a questioning, uncertain voice. When I say “Voice” I mean literally the timbre of what you hear. The deep profundo voice of God is not allowed on the show. I think key to this voice are Laura and Caitlin who sound like your favorite sisters and not your mother or some Amazonian know it all with power hair. The guys are quizzical and sound a bit like your bright university guy friend who is helping you understand calculus or statistics.

Of course everything is online so it is all available at any time. Hence the “banquet” metaphor.

I find all the hand wringing of conventional journalism a bit lame. 3 minute sound bites, 8 inches of text and the VOICE from the burning bush is actually making the world harder to comprehend.

Don’t all the problems that confront us fit this new kind of treatment? For do you really know what do do in Iraq and Afghanistan? Do you really have the answers to health or to energy? Do you know anyone that really has the answer to our education system?

Is not part of our problem that conventi0nal journalism makes it all but impossible to get to the root of these issues?

I think that the limits of “space” and “time” on conventional media do make it worse. These limits reduce all to bits and bites and give a stage and power to rabble rowsers – look at the cheerleaders in the financial sector!

Planet Money will look like the Model T Ford in 30 years time. But it will I think be seen as the Model T, as the expression of an entirely new and appropriate way of approaching the world that we now inhabit. A world that is made so complex by its vast array of interconnections.

As with all things on the web – the real shift is in relationship and hence POV.  The time and space contraints of traditional media drive the top down expert/god POV. This fitted a less interconnected and hence less complex world. But with a hyper linked world, we live in much more complex times. Only a hyper linked way of gathering and offering the news will fit.

That is the revolution.

Hats off to Adam and Alex – to Ira Glass and to Ellen Weiss

What will happen in your town when there is no more “Official News”?

Of course I don’t know but it may be fun to speculate. A good way to speculate I think is to think of nature. What does nature do when an over mature system crashes? When say a big tree falls or there is a forest fire?

Nature has a iron-clad set of rules for the death of an over mature system. The rule seems to be – the small and the fast growing fills in the space. In phase 2, the trees that can get height fast and shade out the rest come next. In phase 3 the slow growing larger trees push by aggregate and then dominate. And then the cycle continues.

So if this pattern is reliable then this is what will happen when your community loses its Big News.

• The Fast Growing New Growth  the “Poplars” – The best of the local bloggers will rise in prominence. Some of the personal brands in the old will also join the local blogging scene. These bloggers will not only write about what interests them but some will pull in and filter news from around the world. They will act as much as taste makers and editors as contributors. But many will also wish to focus on what interests them – “Beats” in effect. Food, politics, books, whatever. The new system is largely here but it has low structure and hence low value.

• Aggregation – Very quickly some of these will form an affiliation. We have seen an early variant of this in St Louis with the establishment of the Beacon. The Beacon is an online “News” service made up of many of the best journalists that used to work for the main Paper the Post Dispatch. The Beacon has moved into the offices of KETC, the PBS local TV station. (Postscipt – Here is a major article by The Current – the Trade Magazine of Pub Media on this work) There are plans for KWMU, the local NPR radio station and the local University to move in too. A great addition will be to find a way to pull in the best of the bloggers. This has not yet been done but is surely possible and desirable. Also on the cards will be the power of this local system to pull in great national and international coverage. CPB, NPR and PBS are working on how best to create and offer a combined feed of the best of their News in one easy to use complete forum. As this aggregation phase builds so does the overall value to all parties in it. The Network Effect benefits all. Costs fall, ROI rises. It becomes central to the economic, social and political health of the community. Being so widespread it excludes competitors. You either have to join or die. It is also hugely valuable to the global producers and to the global aggregators. At some point, NPR and PBS and maybe the BBC also have to form their own aggregated system that lives on top of the local system?

• Climax – I think that the climax or mature and stable phase will emerge from the Aggregation process. This is surely what Sloan did for GM? GM in its heyday was built on the aggregation of a number of brands.  But this time, there is a different economic model. This was not the result of a traditional use of financial capital. Now we have a global system that is truly PUBLIC. It has strong economic roots and is sustainable but it is no longer controlled by a few men with access to credit. It would be very hard to attack by any political force as well.

If I am right and that nature does offer us a model, then the Aggregation phase is where the future lies. The people that can lead the aggregation will “win”. If we can do this in the Public sector then the Public will win.

So where will this happen in your community?

In the US I think that St Louis offers us a strong hint. Journalists, Public TV and Radio can get together to offer a home for the rest of the local blogging ecosystem. They can also pull in national and global content and offer up stories from their own place. I think that the current talks between CPB, NPR and PBS are also very encouraging.

But what about Canada? Would the local music station be the aggregator? How easy/hard would it be for a few bloggers to do this – hard I think. We don’t have the emergent local system that the US has. This tells me that the urgency in the US to “see” their total public system for what it is – the future – is extreme.

It’s all there to win or lose.

With Gustav a day away from landfall many of the most experienced people in the field are coalescing on a Ning site that will aggregate as much information as possible in one place. Wiki, Twets, RSS feeds from Blogs, Video – everything.

Here is the address of the site

Using Google – here are Chinese Tweets being translated into English

So with Tweetscan and Google, any newsroom can get breaking news – the network is here right now!

From “From the Frontline“:

The BBCs Rory Cellan-Jones wonders whether Twitter has come of age with the earthquake that struck Sichuan province in China this morning,

Let’s see, as this story unfolds, whether this is the moment when Twitter comes of age as a platform which can bring faster coverage of a major news event than traditional media, while allowing participants and onlookers to share their experiences. link

I didn’t know anything about the earthquake until I picked up on a (private) tweet from Rebecca Mackinnon in Hong Kong. A quick blast through Twitter using Tweetscan and it soon became clear the Tweetsphere was abuzz with chatter and information sharing about the earthquake. It also became clear news was coming out quicker on Twitter than by more established means. Some pictures appeared on Flickr within an hour of the quake. Meanwhile Robin Hamman points me to a tool that automatically translates what Chinese Twitterers are saying about the earthquake.

There is more – Here is Reuters telling the story of how Dave Winer broke the Virginia earthquake story on twitter.

At about 1:37 pm, software developer Dave Winer asked the Twitterverse: “Explosion in Falls Church, VA?” (Perhaps not coincidentally, Winer is a well-known blogger and podcasting evangelist). A flurry of posts, or “tweets,” followed, as users reported rumbles as far away as Alexandria.

The mainstream media entered the fray at 2:33 pm, with radio station WTOP reporting ground rumblings throughout Northern Virginia, citing a possible earthquake. Officials also told the radio station that the rumblings were part of construction blasts at nearby Ft. Belvoir, which had been scheduled for later in the afternoon as part of a new building for the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.

Twitter users continued to pile on, pointing out data from the Maryland Geological Survey and adding their own commentary. Twitterer DataG wrote: “After the ‘Falls Church explosion’ event that was covered on Twitter, I saw the value in having a Twitter account at-the-ready.”

By 2:56 pm — nearly 90 minutes after Winer’s initial alert — WTOP had the official word from the U.S. Geological Survey: A not-exactly-massive 1.8 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter near Annandale, VA.

The “Falls Church Incident” was earthshaking only in the most literal sense, but it is an interesting proof of concept that news can be broken on Twitter. Reuters is looking at ways to use Twitter in the newsroom, although our feed is currently under renovation.

Twitter – the new AP – no cost – high impact (Thanks to Scoble for the links)

CBS put all their eggs in Katie’s salary and now are thinking of leaving news. ABC spend half the debate on stuff that doesn’t matter. We now know that most of the experts called in to advise us about the war were on the payroll of the Pentagon.

News is becoming entertainment or has often been bought just when we all need to be informed.

How can we get a sense of how these issues, or any issue, really affects us?

I interviewed Michael Skoler of American Public Media to find out how he is using new technology to draw on the real experience of over 50,000 citizens to ground their news at a price that they can afford. His project is called Public Insight Journalism and may be part of the foundation of a more relevant way of offering news.

Over 55,000 people are in the network and are tapped for their experience – how are gas prices affecting your life rather than what do you feel about rising gas prices.

This network is facilitated by a new kind of journalist and by a new kind of social software that keeps the system healthy.

The experiment is now 5 years old and has gone beyond the experiment into the operational and is now starting to spread.

What do you think about the news today? Do you think this may help?

Remember CBS news was the gold standard. It was when Walter Cronkite told us that America could not win in VietNam that Johnson decided not to run. I think that this is the beginning of the end for conventional news organizations that have not adopted the tools and the culture of the real network. Here is Michael Rosenblum in full flood on what has happened:

CBS News had a lot of time to restructure; to take advantage of what the new technologies offered. Beet-tv reported today that Reuters News is covering Iraq with 35 videojournalists. CBS News, apparently has opted for no coverage of Iraq.

The fate of CBS News is hardly surprising. Following in the ignoble footsteps of other American corporations like Kodak, who preferred to go down clinging to the past rather than embrace new and scary technologies. Their loss, and ours.

Perhaps the last gasp of a defunct and completely out of touch management was Katie Couric’s pornographic $15 million a year salary – to work 22 minutes a night reading what someone else had written. The sheer stupidity of this, the sheer short-sightedness of it now becomes obvious to everyone. For Couric’s reported $15 million, CBS could have (could have) hired and fielded an astonishing 150 Videojournalists worldwide, paying them a quite honorable $100,000 a year to report for CBS News. CBS News could have (could have) placed itself on the cutting edge of the digital news revolution.

Instead they opted to become the dinosaur poster child of the end of old media.

Here is the lesson that I see.

Moving to this new world is NOT ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY. It is about culture. If you are imbued with their old culture, it is unlikely that you can make the shift. Adoption is not about the tools – CBS could have adopted the tools but they could not. They were too invested in their old way.

Many still tell me that they have time. Many tell me that they are too busy running the old to do much about the new. Many tell me that when the audience get there, so will they.

iTunes is now the largest music store in the world. The new is now no longer a beach head – the new is on the banks of the Rhine. The Homeland of the old is about to be invaded. The Gotterdammerung of the old is about to happen.

Part of the growth of audience for public radio has been the car. For many Americans, commuting can take up between 1 and 2 hours a day. NPR’s key shows Morning Edition and All Things Considered have been designed to meet the demand of thoughtful people who sit alone day after day in traffic. Many of the hosts seem to have become friends – after all for a 4 hour commute, the radio hosts spend more “talk” time with the commuter than any other person.

Until now, the car, like the plane, has been a “Web Free Zone” But all of this is going to change.

At the CES this month, Cars moved onto the spotlight. (AP)

Cars and automotive technologies from startups and established aftermarket makers are abundant at this gadget show. They’re coming in such variety that they encapsulate many of the advances seen elsewhere at CES in cell phones, TVs, video games and wireless Internet networking.

For example, one theme at CES is the development of touch-screen and voice-activated controls for portable devices. Cars are showing that off, too, with systems that let people make phone calls, navigate, choose music and have e-mails read to them without dangerously fumbling for manual controls.

Or look how CES overall is highlighting the widening availability of Internet content. Autonet Mobile Inc. offers a small box for car trunks that takes a cellular broadband signal and uses Wi-Fi to relay it to portable computers in the car, so people can browse the Internet in the vehicle. And while the car is parked near a home wireless network, people can beam music and video content to it for enjoyment on upcoming road trips.

“The car is a lifestyle product,” said Sterling Pratz, Autonet Mobile’s CEO. “It’s not just a car anymore.”

The clock is ticking for the car terrestial radio market. Wifi is not only seen as being key to car entertainment and guidance but also enables the systems in cars to be updated.

One reason for automakers’ increasing comfort is that powerful computers now found in cars can get software updates fired in by wireless networks, letting vendors fix bugs and keep features up to date, said Erik Goldman, president of Hughes Telematics Inc. His company is expected to begin outfitting Chrysler and Mercedes cars with a navigation, entertainment and diagnostics service in 2009.

Another change is that car makers have often sought to differentiate themselves with proprietary electronic systems, like General Motors Corp.’s OnStar, that operate independently from gadgets people regularly use outside the car.

But these days automotive electronics are being more closely integrated with standard Web technologies.

For example, the Hughes Telematics system will include a personal Web portal that lets people remotely lock and unlock their car doors, plan routes, check their auto’s emissions and engine status, select music playlists and even monitor their vehicle’s location.

Increasing ties to the Web could broaden the field of automotive-tech vendors beyond traditional players. Last year, OnStar began working with MapQuest.com, part of Time Warner Inc.’s AOL LLC, so drivers could plan their routes online and send them to the car.

At a CES panel on the interplay between cars and electronics, Eckhard Steinmeier, general manager of BMW’s “Connected Drive” initiative, showed a commercial in which a woman says she wants to investigate sushi options. So she heads out of her house, in the rain, to do a Google search from her Beemer’s dashboard.

Where and how we connect to the web and to each other is becoming ubiquitous. Finding the best interface is therefore shaping up as being very important.