PubForge Open Source Collaboration Survey

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The survey received 64 individual responses as of September 4, 2008. Respondents were well distributed throughout the United States. 59 were based at US public broadcasting stations and networks, including community radio, NPR affiliates and joint licensees. Three worked at broadcast program entities, and two at public radio distribution entities.

Of 62 respondents, 24 respondents held new media titles, 12 were station managers, seven held IT/engineering titles, six were program directors, four were in operations, four were volunteers positions, two were outside consultants, two were news staff, and one was a program host.

Summary of Findings

Open Source has been adopted by stations as a whole: A majority of stations utilize open source software. When it is not used, there is considerable interest in using it.

• Of 49 respondents, 18 do not use any open source software

• Of those, all respondents except two said they would consider using" well-documented open source software."
• A majority (31) do currently use open source software for some aspect of their online service.

Allocating resources to web development and maintenance is critically low:

Full-time web resources are allocated as follows:

• More than half (55%) of respondents have zero full time employees developing their website

• 80% have zero or only one full time employees dedicated to website creation and management
• Only 6% have more than two employees

Part-time web resources are allocated as follows:

• 71.2% have zero or one part-time employee

• Only 11.9% have more than two employees

  

Commonality among potential Open Source projects were identified: When asked to prioritize open source development projects, the most popular responses given by the total group were:

• 72% - Freestanding player for streams, archives and user created playlists
• 72% - Tools to integrate existing social media networks into public media sites
• 68% - Complete CMS website solution, including audio file management
• 66% - Software to enable more community participation for public media
• 61% - Application for supporting micro payments (granular giving)
  to enable giving around specific content
• 48% - Open source tools to gather playlist info for reporting to Sound Exchange
• 34% - Player/browser specific to the whole of public media network
• 27% - Create a non-commercialized social media network, akin to
  an open source twitter client

Common threads were identified among missing pieces of public broadcasting websites:

Technology

• User customizable homepages (similar to iGoogle)
• Improved searching capabilities for content (by station and system wide)
• Comprehensive membership management to track users from web to back office systems
• Audio streaming, playback, analytics tracking
• Cross browser compatibility
• Media transcription
• Embeddable, universal (open source) players and audio format

Content Areas

• Attractive, appealing sites that invoke public radio community and vibe
• National content presented in a localized context
• Exposing local content in parallel with national content
• Easy access to content (text and audio)
• Aggregating content created by other local sites
• Content is lost between the broadcast stream and the website

Community

• A sense of community

• Social networking capabilities
• Social engagement tools that allow playlists built on archives
• Visits to the website pale in comparison to broadcast listeners
• Community input around events/issues
• The local involvement is not exposed in the final production pieces; thus creating a disconnect between the community and the station

View the complete summary of the survey results.