NPR Is Building iPad-Only Website

Posted on March 16, 2010 by Mark Willis

ReadWriteWeb reports that NPR and the Wall Street Journal are planning custom-built websites for the Apple iPad that will be 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.

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One Response to NPR Is Building iPad-Only Website

  1. Mark Willis says:
    March 16, 2010 at 2:25 pm

    Marc Andreessen on IPad web apps (via TechCrunch):

    Andreessen asked me if TechCrunch is working on an iPad app or planning on putting up a paywall. I gave him a blank stare. He laughed and noted that none of the newer Web publications (he’s an investor in the Business Insider) are either. “”All the new companies are not spending a nanosecond on the iPad or thinking of ways to charge for content. The older companies, that is all they are thinking about.”

    But people pay for apps. Wouldn’t he pay for a beautiful touchscreen version of a magazine? Maybe, if it were something genuinely new that blew him away. It would have to be more than an article with video and graphics though. (I agree, otherwise it’s no better than a CD-ROM).

    Oh, and he points out, that the iPad will have a “fantastic browser.” No matter how many iPads the Apple sells, the Web will always be the bigger market. “There are 2 billion people on the Web,” he says. “The iPad will be a huge success if it sells 5 million units.”

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