NPR One App

For class, we’re supposed to download the NPR app and then give it kind of a review and rate it in terms of how much we liked it. I downloaded the app the other day, and sat down to listen to an hours worth of material that NPR One has to offer.

At first, the app automatically synced me up to Michigan Radio.I started to listen to the different news segments, and after awhile I found myself skipping all of the Michigan Radio segments.

After about 20 minutes, I thought I would look at the app and see if there was a different station to switch it to. I’m from New York, So I decided WNYC would be a good alternative option. Turns out, the segments ended up being pretty interesting, especially because most of them were about the snowstorm and how everyone ended up freaking out over nothing which I found entertaining.

As I reached the 45 minute mark in my listening experience, I noticed that the app started to tailor to what I was interested in. At first, the app played almost all political news. Personally, politics are not my favorite subject, so I skipped most of those segments. I also started to like the segments that I was more interested in. These categories included: tech, around the nation, digital life, movies, and TV. The segment “Sling TV could be Cable-Cutter’s Dream” and the segment about lack of sleep and the connection to Alzheimer’s disease were the ones I found myself paying the most attention to. Also I loved the interview with the comedian who is now on The Daily Show.

I think the “interesting” light bulb really helped to make the app effective. Every time I found something I liked, I clicked the button and it sort of realized what I liked and clicked on vs. what I skipped.

Overall, I really enjoyed the app! It was basically like the “Pandora of News”, except you weren’t limited on the amount of things you were able to skip, which I loved. I feel like if I gave the app one more hour, it would’ve known exactly what I liked and what I didn’t like. I also really liked how I could pause the app at anytime. I ended up listening to it at work, and could pause whenever I had to focus on something completely. One critique I do have, similar to Pandora, is the randomization of what you’re getting. I almost wish there was just a drop down menu of every story so that I could click on everything I wanted to hear and make a “playlist”, instead of leaving it up to chance. However, I still really like the app and will probably use it again!