Public Radio Exchange

Ars Technica on PRX

Jake posted on Sunday, March 7th, 2010 | Blog, PRX in the News

Nate Anderson’s article on PRX and the Public Radio Player and TAL iPhone apps appeared on the influential tech site Ars Technica this past week:

When Public Radio Exchange (PRX) developed the free Public Radio Player for the iPhone, the nonprofit hoped for 500,000 downloads. It now has 2.5 million. “I’m very happy with that number,” says PRX executive director Jake Shapiro.

He should be. The PRX dev team has already cranked out two great iPhone apps, one for public radio in general and one for the popular show This American Life in particular. Both apps have positioned public radio as a major force when it comes to on-demand mobile applications.

The piece gets into the dynamics of public radio’s transition to digital:

As content becomes portable, stations have to rethink their “unique value propostion as local institutions” and rething their role as mere broadcasters of other people’s work. Tools like the Public Radio Player won’t help small stations that don’t do original material, but they can be a boon to those that do. The player exposes schedules, it allows local stations to stand out by doing local programming, and it allows those looking for such things to find them in a way that was difficult before.

Read the full article on Ars Technica here.

Next up in the App department: WBUR Boston – local public media app done right!

Tags: ars technica, iphone, public radio player

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