Local web firm, KUSP to develop RadioEngage
Today the Knight News Challenge, a program of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, announced a $327,000 grant to Quiddities Dev Inc. a web solutions organization based here in Santa Cruz. With KUSP’s collaboration, Quiddities will develop RadioEngage, an open source publishing platform optimized for the needs of public radio stations.
KUSP will pilot the project here at kusp.org and our content team, led by New Media Director Steve Laufer, will work closely with Quiddities’ designers as they explore this new territory for public media.
As an open source project based on the Drupal software platform, RadioEngage will be available for all public media organizations to freely implement and improve upon as soon as it is released. Our objective is deeper community participation and engagement by allowing the creators, contributors, and listeners of news, information and music to communicate and collaborate directly and easily.
A year ago, at the time the first Knight News Challenge grants were awarded, Knight recognized Minnesota Public Radio’s Public Insight Journalism project with its Knight News Innovation EPpy Award. We are incredibly honored that Knight chose our collaboration with Quiddities to further advance their commitment to community-service-focused, participatory public radio.
The full press release for the grant (as a pdf file) is linked here. We’re very excited about this opportunity and I am grateful to Margaret Rosas and her team at Quiddities, KUSP Development Director Virginia Wright, the aforementioned Steve Laufer, and all of the staff and volunteers in KUSP New Media who worked hard to create the proposal… and to the fine people of the Knight Foundation who saw it as worthy of such generous support!
Watch this space!
Josh said,
May 15, 2008 @ 11:52 am
Congrats to Terry and the whole KUSP team. I’m thrilled to hear about this development!
dan garr said,
August 17, 2008 @ 11:42 pm
as i look around i see nothing about costs, esp. employment. i am concerned that given limited exposure to this i may be missing something but i havent seen anything yet about cutting costs, sooooo………
1. cut the staff to four paid positions: terry, dale, genial and rob. any functions that need staff time should be on an ad hoc basis using independent contractors (no benefits, health plans, etc). sorry about that but community radio is not for those seeking a 30-year guaranteed employment and gold watch.
2. i take a dim view of why we have to become the newest frontier for the slimy robot radio that now drools on our horizon.
3. NPR all day long and a little music before 9pm bedtime? uh uh i think that it doesnt really matter to them whether it is kusp, kgo, or ksuk….as long as the prattle echoes off their tiled bathroom walls all day. i can understand why some want that, old and alone (?) as they are, but kusp now wields the meat-axe that has now collectively and insensitively dismembered hundreds of years of musical expertise that cannot be bought at any price – i think all of us know what shows are drawn and quartered as a result of this….it leaves me with the heaviest of sadnesses.
4. oh yes – recall the board of directors and recruit a new board with musical sensibilities.