On Tuesday, April 24, 2012, NPR Digital Services held a webinar with existing Quick Pledgecustomers to share important information about a security update for stations receiving credit card information via encrypted email. Stations will no longer receive credit card number data via an encrypted email as of June 30th, 2012.  If you are currently receiving credit card data via encrypted email, please contact Sara Terpeny at sterpeny@npr.org with any questions and to initiate the change for your station no later than June 1,2012.

NPR Digital Services continues to provide security measures to ensure that Quick Pledge meets the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI) and is deemed PCI compliant.

Metrics Spotlight is our new series that will help you understand the important numbers behind successful digital measurement strategies.

Hi there, I was just thinking about another interesting web metric that I want to talk to you about – "time spent on page."  Do you have a moment? Not yet?  That's ok, Just leave this page open and I'll wait for you.  

As you can see, Michigan Radio took home armfuls of Michigan Associated Press awards last weekend. And among them, first place for best non-commercial radio website. For the second year in a row, by the way.

Here’s what the judges had to say: “Nice to land directly on a site that shouts news. One-stop shopping for headlines and in depth coverage. Very robust.”

This preview of the report released today by Edison Research caught my attention:

This year, we are reporting that the weekly usage of Internet radio (which includes both the online streams of terrestrial broadcasters and streams from pure-play streamers such as Pandora) has increased from 22% of Americans 12+ in 2011 to 29% in 2012 – a jump of over 30%. This is a number that we are accustomed to seeing grow bit by bit each year, but this is the largest year-over-year increase we’ve seen since we began tracking this stat in 1998. http://ow.ly/ac5z0

For many public media stations, mobile means one thing: apps. We all know mobile is important, and many stations have launched successful mobile apps that engage your audience with audio, news, and more.

But here’s the truth: If your app is the only component of your mobile strategy, you’re missing the boat. Mobile-optimized web pages are rapidly becoming the most important way to grow your online audience.

That’s why at NPR Digital Services we are currently working on a prototype of a mobile-optimized site for stations, which we showed off at the iMA conference last month.

The first week at a new job is always a mix of excitement and confusion. It’s a quiz, really. How many new logins can you remember? How many new names and faces? Is this the way to the bathroom or the supply closet? Add to that a new city, new apartment, (same cats), and altered habits.

It’s fun but it’s wrenching. So after all that, why do any of us pack up our things and start over again? Well, we do it because of opportunity. We have the chance to use the skills we gained in our previous jobs and apply them to a new challenge.

Later this month Arbitron and Edison Research will release their annual Infinite Dial study, in which they find that the weekly usage of Internet radio (which includes online streams of terrestrial broadcasts) among Americans 12 and over increased by more than 30% from 2011 to 2012. It's the biggest increase since they started tracking that statistic in 1998, which begs the question: Do you know how many people listen to your station's stream(s)?

A piece by Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab highlights how NPR Digital Services and NPR.org are experimenting through partnerships with member stations. The story references two recent projects -- our experiment with KPLU to geotarget content on NPR's Facebook page and a new test that displays local headlines of 13 member stations on the NPR.org home page.

During pledge week at stations all across the country, every boy's and girl's fancy turns to one thing: Show me the money. Teams focus on the best ways to drive awareness (and conversion), and we wonder how to best use our web site as part of the package. So we try everything: 300x250 ads, big banners, lightboxes, interstitial pages, and more.

But here's the question: What actually works? Which of these online formats actually drive increased conversion rate and pledge amount? And do the intrusive ad formats negatively affect user engagement -- do they annoy people so much that it discourages them from using the site?

We decided to run a test and find out.

Have you upgraded to Facebook Timeline yet for your station or show pages? As of March 30, every page on Facebook will be automatically moved over to the Timeline format.