[Missouri-l] NPR's New Wi-Fi Radio

[peter altschul]

NPR's New Wi-Fi Radio is a Baby Boomer's Boombox
  BY Erica Westly Mon Oct 19, 2009 at 9:39 AM


NPR may have spent the better part of this year making itself 
into a leader in
digital broadcasting, but with its new dedicated Internet radio, 
the
organization is reaching out to its core audience--baby boomers.
  "We had been talking about doing something for our over-50 
listeners for a
while," says Barbara Sopato, director of NPR's e-commerce and 
consumer products
division.  Then, at last year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las 
Vegas, she and
other NPR representatives came across Jake Sigal's booth in the 
"Silvers Summit"
section.  Sigal's company, Livio, introduced a dedicated Pandora 
Internet radio
last year--and now, in time for the holidays, the company is 
debuting a
dedicated NPR radio.  (Sigal will be presenting the radio at the 
AARP at 50 plus expo
in Las Vegas next week).
  Steve Jobs may not be interested in dedicated devices like the 
Kindle, but
there's a case to be made for creating products that help less 
Web-savvy people
take advantage of new technology developments, such as online 
movies and music.
  Take Roku's dedicated digital video player, which makes online 
video from
Netflix, Major League Baseball, and other providers available on 
viewers' TV's.
  Sigal says all his projects start with the question, "How can I 
get this
technology to my parents?" (He invented the first USB turntable 
for converting
vinyl to mp3's).  Now he's thrilled to have worked on a project 
with NPR.  "NPR is
one of the coolest companies we've ever talked to because they 
know what their
users want," he says.
  Sigal and Sopato came to Fast Company's offices recently for a 
quick demo of the
new NPR Internet radio.  Like Livio's Pandora radio, the device 
uses Wi-Fi but
comes equipped with an Ethernet cable for customers who don't 
have wireless
Internet.  The new radio has some features that should appeal to 
younger
audiences, too: great sound quality, and access to more than 
16,000 stations
>do the world and more than 800 NPR stations.  But at $199, this 
device seems
more like something younger consumers would buy for their parents 
than for
themselves.  Livio's NPR radio is avialble for preorder at NPR's 
online store and
on Livio's Web site starting today.
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