{"id":626,"date":"2010-09-16T09:14:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T13:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danieljacobson.net\/blog\/?p=626"},"modified":"2024-09-14T13:32:52","modified_gmt":"2024-09-14T17:32:52","slug":"programmableweb-npr-api-architect-headed-to-netflix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danieljacobson.net\/blog\/626","title":{"rendered":"ProgrammableWeb : NPR API Architect Headed to Netflix"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article was originally published to ProgrammableWeb.com on September 16, 2010, upon the announcement that I was leaving NPR to join Netflix.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Jacobson, responsible for NPR\u2019s trailblazing API<\/a>, is leaving his post to join Netflix next month. Jacobson will become API Director of Engineering for the movie rental service, looking to support the company\u2019s continued expansion to additional streaming devices. At NPR for over 10 years, Jacobson launched its API in 2008 and recently supported mobile devices that helped NPR\u2019s traffic double in a year.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Jacobson joins Netflix at a time when the company is widely distributing its content to wherever media is played. All of these applications are supported by the Netflix API<\/a>, which provides the meta-data, such as movie titles, and the ability to authenticate users to their own Netflix accounts. The new role is less about creating an API as it is expanding what\u2019s already there. \u201cMore of the focal point will be continuing to evolve the APIs for the enterprise needs of the company,\u201d Jacobson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Netflix has been popular with developers, one major reason for an API is internal development, as Jacobson recently wrote in a guest post<\/a>. \u201cI think it\u2019s a great fit because I think that\u2019s exactly the model that NPR has taken,\u201d Jacobson said. \u201cIt\u2019s all about eating your own dog food.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before Jacobson launched NPR\u2019s API, the organization had two outlets for its digital content: the website and what Jacobson called a \u201cless-than-optimal mobile site.\u201d Using the same APIs available to developers, NPR built apps for iPhone, Android and iPad<\/a>, as well as a new mobile site. The result was 100% growth in NPR website traffic, mostly due to the apps. \u201cAs we launched apps, we saw additive pageviews. It wasn\u2019t cannibalizing pageviews from the site,\u201d Jacobson said.<\/p>\n\n\n

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NPR was among the first major media organizations to publish an API. When the we covered its launch<\/a>, we noted it was the first talk radio API to provide access to the station\u2019s content. Additionally, we compared it to the New York Times, which had announced but not released an API. The newspaper released its first API<\/a> three months later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jacobson has been a frequent contributor to ProgrammableWeb as a guest author. For reference, here are all six of his blog posts so far:<\/p>\n\n\n\n