Earlier today, we upgraded the software we use on NPR.org for commenting and other community tools. The upgrade addresses a number of bugs in the system, but it also includes our first experiment with Facebook Connect.

For those of you who aren't familiar with it, Facebook Connect is a way of letting Facebook users participate in other websites and share their content back to their Facebook accounts. In our first experiment, we've added a "Post this comment to Facebook" option to our comments. When you post a comment on NPR.org and click that option, you'll be able to connect your NPR.org account with your Facebook account and have your NPR.org cross-posted to your Facebook news feed.

For now, that's as far as we've taken it, and it's still not perfect - we've gotten it working in Safari and Firefox, but IE users may not be able to see the "Post this comment to Facebook" checkbox just yet. I'll let you know when that's resolved. Meanwhile, exploring the possibility of expanding this feature so you can cross-post NPR stories to Facebook when you click the "recommen" button, and perhaps even use your Facebook login and password to sign into the NPR Community. We're also exploring OpenID, Open Social and other tools that would allow people to sign into NPR via other websites and share their content more easily.

Anyway, I hope you find our first experiment with Facebook Connect useful. Please let us know what you think.

-- Andy Carvin

It has been a couple of rewarding weeks here at NPR.org.

We recently received notice that we had five Webby nominations and 2 Webby honoree mentions. Last week it was announced that we are finalist for two EPpy awards including one for the NPR API. And just to round things out, we picked up the Golden Dot Award for Vote Report.

The 2009 EPpy Awards are the 14th year of the program honoring the best Web sites in the media world, including newspapers, TV-cable, radio and magazines. The NPR API was nominated in the "Best Community Service Application in a Media-Affiliated Web Site with more than one million unique monthly visitors" category.

Additionally, NPR.org was nominated overall for "Best Radio Affiliated Web Site". Other finalist in this category include Minnesota Public Radio and American RadioWorks from American Public Media.

The Webby Awards, an international award, was established in 1996 to honor excellence on the Internet. You can vote for the people's choice Webby's here. Our 2009 nominations include:

NPR Podcasts in the Podcasts category
Project Song in the Music category
NPR Music in the Music category
NPR.org in the Radio category
NPR iPhone Site in the News category

We also received Webby "honoree" mentions for:

Monitor Mix in the Blog -- Culture/Personal category
NPR Music Mobile in the Entertainment category

Finally as mentioned, last week we picked up the Golden Dot Award for the twitter Vote Report for Best Animation or Mashup.

Woot! Thanks Everyone!

-- Zach Brand

Ever since NPR launched an API last July, a number of developers have rushed to build free applications that make public radio content available on a variety of devices, especially the iPhone. From generic podcast players to the NPR Station Finder, these apps are all competing to offer the best experience for consuming NPR content.

These apps all have something else in common: not one of them was built or sponsored by NPR. Instead, they are the work of NPR fans who wanted to make a unique gift to the community of public radio listeners. Like the monetary gifts that thousands of listeners make to their local public radio station each year, these gifts of custom applications help to share the public radio experience with new generations of listeners.

One of my favorite applications is NPR Addict, which makes more than 13 years of NPR content available on the iPhone. Developed by Bradley Flubacher, a professional coder who moonlights as a volunteer firefighter, NPR Addict features podcasts and streams from NPR stations across the nation. Flubacher continues to update the app, in spite of his busy schedule, and every few months I notice another feature that keeps me glued to my iPhone for the weekend.

To all the Flubachers of the world, we at NPR want to say thank you. Thank you for your time, your innovative spirit, and for sharing our love of public radio.
-- Demian Perry

Today, we added two updates to the API, as follows:

XML Field Remap
This new functionality allows you to modify our NPRML elements to whatever you want, so your API requests can fit your existing applications without you having to change your code. The remap function allows any node or any attribute to be renamed and it can apply to any number of elements in the document. And again, this only applies to the NPRML output. To see how it works, go to the API Input Reference. In the meantime, here are some examples of how to modify the API query string to implement the remap:

- To change the list element, use "remap=list:newList", which will rename the list node to "newList".

- To change a sub-element of list, use "remap="list.title:newListTitle", which will rename the title node under list to "newListTitle".

- To change the story element, use "remap=list.story:newStory", which will rename the story node to "newStory".

- To change a sub-element of story, use "remap=list.story.title:newStoryTitle", which will rename the title node under story to "newStoryTitle".

- To change a attribute for any element in the NPRML output (even if the node itself was changed), use "remap=story~id:newStoryId", which will rename the id attribute for the story node to "newStoryId".

- To apply many of these changes in a single query, use the comma to separate the remap commands, as follows: "remap=list:newList,story:newStory,story.teaser:newTeaser,
story~id:newStoryId,list.story.text.paragraph:textParagraph".

Most Emailed Feed
We also opened up the Most Emailed list through the API. Previously, it was only available as an RSS feed, but now, it can be accessed through the API, including access to full text, audio, images, and other assets that NPR has the rights to redistribute. There are a few limitations in the feed, however, that are not present in any of our other existing options in the API. For example, this feed cannot be mashed-up with any other feeds from the API, it cannot be sorted, and the queries cannot be restricted by date or search term. As a result of these limitations, the Most Emailed feed is also not present in the Query Generator.

To acces the Most Emailed feed, add "id=100" to the API query string.
--Daniel Jacobson