Every Story is an Episode

Our traditional podcasts, launched in August 2005, often combine multiple stories in a single podcast episode. For example, the Economy podcast has episodes that typically contain 4 stories, delivered on Tuesday and Friday. With Mix Your Own Podcast, each story appears as its own episode. Here is a Mix Your Own version of the Economy podcast. This allows you to download the stories as soon as the audio is available on NPR.org, and it gives you more control over what you want to listen to.

However, if you set up a podcast on a popular topic, you may get several episodes per day, so you may want to adjust your podcast software to keep more episodes available. In iTunes, this is done by selecting the Podcast Tab and then clicking the Settings button on the lower left. You may also want to set your software to download episodes more frequently so that you get timely news as soon as it is available. Here are some suggested settings.

Refined Search

Mix Your Own Podcast finds stories relevant to your interests in one of two ways. First, NPR categorizes stories in many different ways: the program on which the story was aired/published, topics associated with the story, the reporters of the story, musical artists featured in the story, and so on. You can use any of these pre-existing categories to build your podcast. In the Mix Your Own Podcast tool, pre-existing categories will appear as you type in the keyword field. You can select these categories by clicking on them.

Second, your podcast can be based on free text searches of the content of stories. Originally, this search was done on any text content found on the web page for the story as well as the audio transcripts for the stories (if available). While comprehensive, this can find stories that are only tangentially related to your keywords. For example, if you entered "Cat" as your keyword, your podcast could include stories where a reporter used the phrase "Let the cat out of the bag." So, we have changed the way text search is used in Mix Your Own Podcast; now, we will only search the title and the summary of the story. This should provide more relevant stories for your podcast. This change took place automatically, so you don't have to make any changes to your podcast to take advantage of it. However, if you liked the full text search, see the next tip.

Mix Tool for Power Users

You can still use the full text version of search to build your podcast via the API Query Generator. Mix Your Own Podcast is built on top of the NPR API. Using the Query Generator, you can fine tune the criteria used to pick stories for your podcast. To use the Query Generator, you will need to sign up for a free API Key. Then, in the Query Generator, go to the "Fields" tab and select "Podcast" as your "Output Format". You can then use the other tabs to customize your podcast to your heart's content.

For example, if you preferred the full text search option for building your podcast, go to the "Control" tab, type in your search terms, and select "Full Content of Story" as the "Search Type".

Another example of what you can do with the Query Generator is controlling how your selection criteria are combined. In the Mix Your Own Podcast tool, we return stories that match any of your specified criteria. If you enter several categories, the podcast will contain stories that match at least one of the criteria. In technical terms, we call this a "Boolean Or" API query. Perhaps, though, you want to combine your criteria to get a more focused podcast that contains only the stories that match all of the category selections you have made. For example, if I wanted a podcast that contained only stories that were about both Technology and Politics, I would go to the Query Generator "Topics" tab, check both the "Technology" and "Politics" options, and then go to the "Control" tab and select the "And" option for "Boolean for IDs" option.

The end result is my Techlogy and Politics custom podcast.

We would like to hear how you are using the Mix Your Own Podcast tool. If you have created an interesting custom podcast, please post the URL in the comments section of this post.

--Harold Neal

- It allows you to identify local NPR station based on zip code, city/state, station call letters or by broadcasting network.

- It allows you to identify local NPR stations along a driving route.

- It allows you to identify local NPR stations that can be heard at a specific address.

- For stations returned by the finder, you can view the station's coverage map, view more information about the station, and click through to the stations' group page within the NPR Community.

- It is fully supported by our recently released Station Finder API.

We are very excited to have this feature back on the site and hope that it will help our listeners find NPR wherever they may go. In a later post, I will be providing a detailed technical explanation of how the Station Finder Map works.
--Daniel Jacobson

After our successful VoteReport experiment last month, in which we work with bloggers around the country and invited the public to submit reports on their voting experiences, we're hoping to do something similar for the inauguration. Some of our partners in the VoteReport project, including Dave Troy of Twittervision and mapping guru Andrew Turner, are volunteering again to help re-purpose the VoteReport tools for the inauguration. We've also got some new folks involved, including American University journalism professor David Johnson, and I'm sure others will come on board in the coming days and weeks.

Among the things we've got in mind:

Inauguration '09 citizen journalism iPhone app. Dave and his colleagues created an awesome iPhone app for VoteReport that allowed users to post audio and text reports online and have them plotted on maps, using the iPhone's GPS capability. We're thinking of adding on to this app so that it could also allow users to attach inauguration-related photos or perhaps even short video clips. One idea that was also suggested was to allow an iPhone user to save their reports on their phone and post them later, in case AT&T's data networks are jammed on January 20th. We're also thinking of giving users the ability to submit their email and phone number so NPR reporters can contact them in case we want to use their audio in one of our stories.

Mobcasting. During VoteReport, Dave set up a bank of telephone lines that allowed users to call in and record a voicemail about their voting experiences and have it posted for all to hear online. Given that not everyone participating in inauguration festivities will have iPhones, we want to do what we can to make sure that any phone line could be used by you to file a report from the field.

Twitter and tags. Many of our VoteReport participants used Twitter as their primary method of sending in reports, and we expect that to be the case for the inauguration. We're planning to track all Tweets that are tagged either #dctrip09 (for people road-tripping to DC) or #inaug09 (for Inauguration Day itself). We'll then be able to display all the tweets as they come in. People can also use these tags when they upload to sites like Flickr, YouTube, etc, so we can aggregate that content as well. (Though you shouldn't use the # sign when tagging on Flickr or YouTube - that's just a quirk of tagging on Twitter.) Of course, we'll have to encourage people to use those tags in order for them to work, so we'll need your help getting the word out.

Texting. For people who want to send a text message but don't have Twitter, we hope to have an SMS shortcode available. Fingers crossed.

Maps, maps, maps. Thanks to the hard work of Andrew, Dave and others during VoteReport, we managed to pull together some pretty snazzy maps of all of this user-generated content as it came in. We plan to do the same for the inauguration, particularly in the week leading up to it, so we can track content submissions from people all over the country as they make their way to DC. One thing I'm hoping we can pull off is tapping into all those users with iPhones, since the GPS capability will make it possible to plot each person's route, see how far they've traveled and explore what they've uploaded. For January 20th itself, we're thinking about setting up a hyperlocal map of DC itself, so you can observe everyone's submissions over the course of the day, no matter where they happen to be around the National Mall. This might be the toughest thing to do in the project, particularly for content that's not submitted with GPS metadata. (Using zip codes as geolocators, for example, won't work to well when zoomed in at the street level.) So we may put together a series of DC-specific tags (#ellipse, #washmonument, #lincolnmemorial, #airandspace, etc) to make it easier to identify who's doing what where. Journalism students from American University will also be volunteering to cover the inauguration throughout the city, so we'll be highlighting their activities on the map as well.

Of course, all of this is going to be one big, messy experiment, particularly given the fact that many mobile network providers are forecasting serious congestion and possible outages due to the huge numbers of people using their phones simultaneously. Nonetheless, we think it's worth the effort, given how many people are planning to be involved in the inauguration. There are going to be lots of stories to tell that week, and we want to give you the tools to help share those stories.

Lastly, we'd love your help building this project. We don't have many resources to pull this off, and everyone is volunteering their time to do this. Dave and Andrew are tech geniuses, for sure, but they can't do it alone given the limited time between now and January 20th. So we're looking for some techies who can back them up. Our biggest need is for iPhone app developers who can help them repurpose the VoteReport app and get it in the App Store as soon as possible, so people will be able to install it prior to their roadtrips to DC. We'll also need some Rails, Google Maps and Javascript gurus. If you're interested in helping, please post a comment below and describe what skills you can bring to the table, and we'll be in touch with you soon. If you're on Twitter, you can also send me a note at @acarvin.

As for everyone else reading this post, we'd love your feedback. Does this seem like a worthwhile effort? Is there anything you liked or disliked about VoteReport that we should take into consideration? Are there any specific features or requirements we should try to work into the project? Please let us know what you think.

-- Andy Carvin

Then, after countless episodes of rants, name calling and non sequiturs (it's people like you who will soon have us living in a Nazi wonderland ruled over by a leader who makes Hitler look like a caring social worker), your ideals are dashed.

Where do these meandering, senseless rants come from? Trolls, people who say just about anything to get a rise out of others. Don't get me wrong, I think for the most part, we have a very strong let-the-community-sort-itself-out ethos. We welcome pointed comments from all points of view. We just ask that they also be constructive and substantive.

Trolls, however, are community members without convictions, arguing a point just to see the other person go red. They turn perfectly interesting threads into festering cesspools of resentment.

We've talked about what to do with them. We've stepped in and asked posters to stop breaking the discussion rules. We've blocked scads of comments, and even a few community accounts. Eventually, we came to the obvious conclusion that the only thing that will move this conversation forward is to ask the community to ignore them.

So, here's a new community rule: Do not "feed" the trolls. We encourage community members to report abuse by trolls. But we also ask that you not engage with trolls in the comment threads. Reacting to their provocations is exactly what they want.

If we see you feeding a troll, we will remove both the troll's comments and your responses.

I messaged with a few community members about implementing this new rule and the reaction was mostly positive. But everyone had one question: How do you define a troll?

I think I've already given some definition to the concept of a troll. But community member Peter Wilbur added a bit more: "I think of it," he wrote in an e-mail, "as someone who doesn't engage others in a discussion, who posts irrelevant comments, or who goes off on the same rant no matter the topic."

In some ways, a troll is like the person at the party who's a little too drunk and picks a fight with everyone. He (or she) is the one who makes things so hostile that everyone avoids a gathering as soon as they see him on the guest list.

Our oft-stated principle is that we want the NPR.org community to be home to a civil conversation that avoids insults, vulgarities and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. We ask for first and last names during the registration process because we want users to remember that behind our funny avatars and strong views are real human beings.

Trolls tend to hide behind the anonymity of the Internet to make community interactions less human. So, from now on, let's ignore them.

-- Eyder Peralta

Tell us your plans in the comment area below, or e-mail us at homework@npr.org. We may even contact you to find out more!

Note: This post was originally published on Dec. 19 and then republished on Nov. 3 so that comments could remain open beyond the normal seven-day limit.

Mix Your Own Podcast
Prior to this release, the API offered only streaming formats of our audio content, including Windows Media, Real Audio, and progressive download MP3. These formats were supported by a Terms of Use that required API users to stream the audio from our servers, preventing them from downloading the audio. With today's launch, however, the API now allows users to slice through the NPR.org archive to create custom podcast feeds based on virtually any aggregation (or combination of aggregations) in the API. To learn more about this, go to the NPR Podcast Directory.
Due to various current constraints, the only real exception here is that users will not be allowed to create full-show podcasts of Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition Saturday or Weekend Edition Sunday. However, all stories from these and other programs will be available to create any other podcast mashup in the system.

Station Finder API. With this release, we are also offering access to our Station Finder API. This API will allow users to pass in zip codes, city/state, station call letters or latitude/longitude information, and we will return a list of stations that can be heard in that location. The station results also include key information about the stations, including links to their home page, schedule page, audio streams, RSS feeds, podcasts, station logo and more. Because the system also has station stories from some of these stations (and more of this content will become available in the coming months), you will be able to, for example, search for a zip code, identify the stations in that zip code, then find all of the stories from all of the stations returned. Over the coming months, more station content will be made available through the API.

New Content: Fresh Air and StoryCorps. With this release, we are also making available the full archive of Fresh Air and StoryCorps. For Fresh Air, we will be explosing over 10,000 stories (and counting) dating back to 1993. The StoryCorps offering will include about 200 stories (and counting) dating back to 2005.

Query By Asset Type
Now you can query the API to get stories that contain a particular type of asset. For example, you can filter your query to only get stories that contain images (useful if you are building a slideshow application, for example), or stories with audio, or stories with long-form text. To use this new feature, append &requiredAssets=image to your query string and you will get only stories with images. The other allowed values for this parameter are audio and text. You can combine these filters with a comma-delimited string (&requiredAssets=image,text,audio). This new feature will be added to the documentation and the Query Generator in the next week or so. This feature does not work yet with API queries based on free-text search.

We are excited about this new release and view it as the next step in our continued effort to open up our content to the world.
--Daniel Jacobson

NPR Member Station Implementations

Minnesota Public Radio Program Archives

North Country Public Radio

Oregon Public Broadcasting

KGOU

SouthEast Public Radio

WAMC

Hearing Voices Widget

KJZZ - NPR Simile Timeline

Public User Websites, Widgets, and Applications

Reverbiage Widget

Axiom Stack iPhone Site

KDE Desktop NPR Audio Player

NPR Backstory Twitter Mashup

RubyNPR - A code wrapper in Ruby

All Tweets Considered

NPR Song of the Day Widget for Mac OSX Dashboard

NPR Audio Search Box FireFox Plug-In

If you have created something using the API and it is not included in this list, please let us know about it by adding it in the comments of this post.
--Daniel Jacobson

NPR Community: Most popular music wordle.com

 

But other things are surprising: The science fiction film Blade Runner is the second favorite after the classic romance Casablanca.

These are the things we know after digging through some of the favorites you listed in your NPR.org profiles. Above is a crude tag cloud of the community's favorite music. Below is another based on listed hobbies. (Click on the image to get an enlarged version.)

NPR Community: Most popular hobbies. wordle.com

 

We're learning lots -- the most listed area of expertise? Music. Favorite program? All Things Considered. Favorite book? The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- and after the jump we've compiled two top-10 lists. Did any items on the list surprise you?

-- Eyder Peralta

Top Ten Movies:

1. Casablanca


2. Blade Runner


3. The Shawshank Redemption


4. The Big Lebowski


5. Star Wars Trilogy


6. Amelie


7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind


8. Fight Club


9. Pulp Fiction


10. Star Wars

Top Ten Music Acts:

1. Radiohead


2. The Beatles


3. Bob Dylan


4. Tom Waits


5. Wilco


6. The Decemberists


7. Neil Young


8. Miles Davis


9. The Clash


10. Bruce Springsteen

Despite the challenges in figuring out what our numbers mean, we do believe that our usage and registration numbers (published most recently two weeks ago in my last post) are a strong indication of success for the API.

Another challenge is how to actually get our metrics. While our goal is to encourage the re-use of our content, we obviously want some way to measure success. There are several key ways that we have baked into the system to allow us to see how the API is being used. Keep in mind that there is no 100% way to know how many eyes are seeing the content, only how people are implementing it, and in some cases, on which websites, blogs or applications people are seeing the content that came from the API. The primary methods are as follows:

* Since all audio must be served from NPR servers (based on our Terms of Use), we are able to tag the audio accordingly, indicating that the request originated from the API.

* All requests to the API require an access key. This helps us identify trends in usage of the API at the key level, in addition to at much higher levels.

* For each request in the system, we will be outputting a log to our servers that includes the request, the API key used in the request, and the stories/assets that were returned. Over time, we will be able to see trends of use, most popular requests, most commonly distributed stories, etc.

* For any rich-content request to the API (ie. text elements that contain HTML), we have included a 1x1 pixel image that is served from NPR servers (which is an industry standard approach for capturing metrics online) and passes information back to our logs. This will help us identify some of the places where NPR content is appearing when it has been cached by the website, blog or application.

Like I said, this is not the complete picture, but these approaches result in metrics that do give us a good indication as to how the API is getting used and by whom. With that in mind, these numbers only have weight if they translate into real-world consumption of the content. In my next post I will highlight some of the more interesting implementations and usages that we have heard about in the marketplace.
-- Daniel Jacobson

Not only was the chat interesting, but we got over 100 comments. Many of the comments were from people who either had connections to the auto business or actually worked in the industry. (Nothing like talking to people who actually know what you're trying to report on.) :-) So after we did the Web chat, I began contacting some of the people who had commented.

Within a day, I was able to put together a radio story entirely based on sources from the Web chat. These were terrific sources with lots of knowledge whom I would have never been able to find by old reporting methods, like calling around. I also read some of the comments on All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation.

Now, I'm moving on to a story about car dealerships. One of the people who commented on the Web chat runs an advertising company whose clients include hundreds of dealerships. He's putting me in touch with some of his clients, some of whom, I imagine, will also soon be on the air.

In short, the Web chat has been a great way to find new sources and also get in touch with the people who ultimately support our work: the listeners.

-- Frank Langfitt, NPR Labor/Workplace Correspondent

For the most part, we've been happy with the conversation you all have created; we've learned a lot in the past couple of months, from how a community polices itself to more ordinary things like useful links and amazingly human tales about the toll of war.

Terrell Spencer's comment on Ivan Watson's story about a tumultuous marriage between an Iraqi woman an American serviceman was especially poignant.

He wrote:

I'm an Iraq War vet, and I've recently come out of PTSD. Fallujah was a hell hole. You can't live/fight there and it not mess you up. I'm a loving husband and father, I consider it my duty to sacrifice for my family. I love and respect critters, but 8 months ago I snapped at the world's loyalest dog for not coming. I beat her, pummeling her with my fists, screaming while choking her, then threw her off the porch. I was completely out of control. I never hit my wife, but I shamefully created a home where she and my son lived on edge. I'm better now, I've dealt with what happened over there. Why am I spilling all this? Because these people need help. They're hurt and messed up. These people are ashamed, and hurting. They should be rebuilt - not abandoned and condemned.

The comment was left amidst a hostile conversation. The gist of it is that, after struggling economically, the Iraqi woman in the story had turned to stripping to support her family in the United States. A lot of the comments were disconcerting in their judgment.

One of the mild ones came from Jan Shields, who wrote, "Where is the dignity and discipline that we associate with our veterans of war? Shameful. shameful, shameful!"

A couple of producers asked that the comment thread be closed for the story and we considered that seriously, but, then, out of the steam of the conversation emerged Spencer's earnest plea.

Part of the reason we launched community tools on the site was to open NPR to the outside but another big reason was that we thought the wisdom of the many would better inform the stories on NPR.

To see so little empathy given to such a human, flawed family was, to be honest, disheartening. Part of my greatest hope for a community like this is that we go back and forth civilly on a diversity of opinions and come to find some understanding.

But I guess the lesson learned with Spencer's comment is that sometimes to come to that understanding, we need a little tousling, that sometimes out of dissonance emerges harmony.

Next Time: A lighter fare: We look at the NPR Community's top favorites.
The Time After Next: We consider two new discussion rules.

-- Eyder Peralta

I will start up again by talking about my recent presentation at Mashery's API Conference last week. The conference itself was primarily focused on the business of APIs. In my presentation, I mainly discussed NPR's goals for opening up an API along with some of the challenges we faced leading up to the launch.

As NPR reviewed the landscape of content syndication, we found that there were quite a few APIs already in the marketplace. Most of them, however, belong to content aggregators (eg. Google, Yahoo!, etc.), user-generated content sites (eg. Flickr, Wikipedia, etc.), and some e-commerce sites (eg. eBay, Amazon, etc.). There were surprisingly few comprehensive APIs from major media organizations. Some organizations, like DayLife, CBS and BBC, offered APIs, but these limited in a variety of ways.

Mostly, these major media organizations were syndicating their content through RSS or extended RSS, such as Podcasts or MediaRSS. This approach has been surprisingly effective - what I call "Really Successful Syndication". It is successful because RSS is simple, widely adopted in the marketplace, and succeeds in driving traffic back to the site. The major problems with RSS are the same things that make it really successful. That is, in the current marketplace, RSS now stands for "Really Stingy Syndication" because it does not contain very much real content. Instead, it provides enough content to drive traffic back to the source, embracing the "lock-down" model of content.

The marketplace is changing dramatically, though, and people have destinations to which they are attached. They go to Facebook, MySpace, etc. and expect to find content there. Content providers will have to put their content on these sites through widgets and other means of distribution. If the users of Facebook, for example, find the content they want on Facebook, then they are less likely to leave Facebook to get more content (unless the user has a keen interest in a specific content provider). As a result, the richer the content is on Facebook, the more likely the user identifies your brand as a trusted news source. So, RSS is ok only if no other providers offer richer content. But it is only a matter of time before the richer content is there...

Because of these changes in the marketplace, NPR decided to release a comprehensive API of all of our content that we have rights to redistribute. If our content is truly open, it will enable users to mash it up, keep it relevant to them, and share it with new audiences in places where those people are. Although NPR.org is still critical to our strategy, we can no longer rely exclusively on the site as a way to reach people.

There were two other major factors in our decision. First, it is critically important for NPR to provide content and services to our Member stations. The API will enable stations to get NPR content on their sites. We also plan to offer local station content through the API, which will provide a local/national view of content to the users. The second major influence in our decision was NPR's Mission to "create a more informed public". By offering both local and national content in our API, enabling users to mash it up and use it in ways that we have not thought of or don't have the resources to execute, we hope to reach and inform new audiences.

Once we decided to release an API, there were several questions that we needed to answer. First and foremost, we needed to establish what our target audiences for the API would be. They are as follows:

• End-users and other web developers (These users can post content to blogs as well as create innovative ways of using NPR content)
• NPR's Digital Media team (NPR Product and Project Managers can improve their products using the API without a lot of effort from NPR Developers)
• NPR Member Stations
• Content aggregators and NPR's business partners

Serving each of these audiences through the API enables us to seamlessly integrate with them in such a way that it requires very little involvement from NPR's development staff.

In the slides (attached below) from the conference, I have provided some examples of how these audiences are using the API.

We will be discussing more of our challenges in later posts.
-- Daniel Jacobson

But what if you want to hear more...?

Well if you missed us present at OSCON 08 there will be other opportunities to hear us first hand discuss what we have done, and where we are going with the API.

Here are several of the upcoming events we plan to be at:

Today (11/03) at 5:15pm PST Daniel Jacobson will be discussing our efforts on the API at The Business of APIs Conference. If you are attending please stop by.

For those in the Public Broadcasting family, we will be at IMA Public Media 09 in Atlanta Feb 19-21. This is definitely a must attend for those in public broadcasting who see their future world meshing traditional and new media experiences.

We are also very excited to be a finalist for the We Media Game changer award. Out of 150 Nominees we are one of 35 finalist. Additionally we could be chosen as keynote speaker based on community votes.

And, finally we recently got the word from the folks at O'Reilly that we have been invited to present at the Web 2.0 Expo Mar 31st-Apr. 3rd.

Hope to see you soon.

-- Zach Brand

The biggest thing we've done is added a new community-building tool called NPR Groups. We now have the ability to create individual communities on the site that feature their own discussion boards, a group blog, event listings, and galleries for user-generated photos and video. They're not unlike the groups you see available on Facebook and other social networking sites.

With today's release, we've set up groups capability for almost 300 NPR member stations and station networks. You can browse or search the list of stations in our new station group directory. Initially, most stations won't have the new tools activated for their group pages, but you can still friend them by going to their group page and clicking the "join" button on the right side of the page. Stations with group pages each get to decide for themselves whether they'll use the new community tools or not, so not all of your favorite stations will have the full functionalities set up. One example of a station that has just activated the community tools on the site is WDAV Classical Public Radio in Davidson, NC. If you've already listed any favorite stations by editing your account on NPR.org, you'll automatically be added to those groups; they'll also appear on your user profile as well.

The new groups tools aren't just for stations. We're also making them available to NPR shows and journalists, so we can roll out new community spaces for a variety of topics. This will happen over the course of the coming weeks and months; I'll post updates about new groups on the blog.

Meanwhile, today's release addresses several bugs and other fixes, including some that were suggested by blog readers.

• Added text to the NPR.org registration page to clarify that user's full names are displayed in their profiles and comments

• Fixed the bug that prevented users with apostrophes, dashes and other characters in their names can register successfully

• Fixed our blog software so blog posts are displayed properly in various parts of the site in relation to our social networking tools

• Comments written with multiple paragraph no longer appear as one long paragraph

Like I said, I'll post updates as new groups roll out. In the meantime, please feel free to let me know if you have any questions or comments.

-- Andy Carvin

Meanwhile, another experiment occurred to me: can you use Twitter as a form of distributed dial-testing during the debate? If you've watched CNN during the previous debates, you may have noticed the dial-test data they display on the screen. A group of people are sitting in a room with a device that has a dial on it. As they hear stuff from the candidates that they like or dislike, they turn the dial to reflect how they feel about it. CNN then averages the dial test results and maps them on the screen.

Imagine if we used Twitter to do the same thing on a mass scale. The simplest way to do it would be to ask users to post tweets with a 1-10 numerical score whenever they have a reaction to a candidate's statement, then tag it with the keyword #dialtest. You could then follow the search results using Twitter's search engine and get a feel for how Twitter users are reacting to the candidates.

Of course, it'd be great if you could do it in a more sophisticated way. For example, I'd love to see some sort of application that could observe the search results for #dialtest and average the numbers included all of the tweets in rapid succession - like every 10-15 seconds - and then retweet the average through another Twitter account. Ideally, you'd want the app to be smart enough to ignore numbers submitted outside of the 1-10 range, and maybe limit the number of tweets from an individual user to a few times a minute so a user can't skew the average. Similarly, I'd love to see the app let users register themselves as supporting a particular candidate or as undecided, so you could follow dial test averages for each category of user type, since the Twitter community probably skews towards Obama supporters.

For tonight, maybe we could just have users tweet something simple, like #dialtest Obama 7.5 if they wanted to give Obama a 7.5 out of 10 for a particular remark, then monitor the search results. I think that's the easiest way to get started. Meanwhile, some of you could also try the new Twitter plotting tool Plodt, which tracks tweets that reference a keyword and assign it a numerical score, placed between asterisks. For example, if you wanted to give McCain an 8.0 for a comment of his, you'd tweet *McCain 8*, with the asterisks included. If you want to try this method, be sure to follow @plodt on Twitter first so they know to track your tweets.

Update: Okay, here's how it's gonna work.

Step 1: Follow @plodt on Twitter.
Step 2: each time you want to rate a candidate's statement, format your tweet like these examples:

#dialtest *McCain 7.5* Good answer on Iran

or

#dialtest *Obama 7.0* Like what he said re: bailout

By including #dialtest in your tweets, everyone will able to follow along using this Twitter search page. And for those of you who are more visual, the tweets will be plotted on a graph using Plodt.com. The graph will only accept your tweet if you follow @plodt on Twitter and surround your ratings with asterisks, like the examples above.

You should now be able to access the Plodt Web site. And like I said, you'll need to follow @plodt on Twitter for your tweets to be processed, though.

Anyway, this is all just a nutty little experiment, so please take the results with a grain of salt. In the meantime, I'm reserving @dialtest on Twitter, just in case.

-- Andy Carvin, aka acarvin on Twitter