“AP Gateway will serve as the launching pad for new products and services from AP and other interested news publishers,” Tom Curley, president and CEO of The Associated Press, said today at the annual meeting of the Colorado Press Association. “It will allow the news industry to deliver the news directly to the consumer in a variety of exciting new ways.”
Jane Seagrave, senior vice president and new chief revenue officer of AP, said the first set of products from the new Gateway unit would be applications for several new devices that have been introduced or announced in recent weeks, including the Apple iPad.
In developing new digital product and service opportunities, AP Gateway will tap AP’s previously announced News Registry, a service for tagging news content with usage rights and source attribution. Publishers using the services of the Registry, now in beta operation with more than 200 participating newspapers, will be able to opt into opportunities developed by the AP Gateway business unit.
AP Gateway expands the work started by AP in 2008, when it launched an initiative to ingest news content from AP members, categorize it and tag it with rich metadata. That aggregation of AP and member content enabled the launch of AP Mobile, a set of services for smart phones that feature AP content and local news from more than 1,000 member newspapers and broadcasters.
William Dean Singleton, chairman of the AP Board of Directors and chairman and chief executive officer of MediaNews Group said in the press release, “We’ve already seen the power of the AP Cooperative in AP Mobile, among the most popular news applications for smart phones worldwide. AP Gateway builds on the strength of the Cooperative in the era of digital publishing.”
The announcement of AP Gateway comes less than a year after AP announced the News Registry, a platform for tagging, setting rights and tracking usage of news content across the Internet. The Registry will move out of beta operation this year and be open to all AP members and broadcasters by year’s end.
Over the past six years, AP has transformed its content creation, processing and distribution methods to make it easier for members of the news cooperative to take advantage of the new ways consumers are accessing news and information. At the heart of AP’s new platform is a searchable, multimedia database of AP content that members can access using flexible, Web-based portals.
“AP Gateway is the natural extension of our ongoing digital strategy,” said Curley in his Denver announcement. “Rather than just repurpose our content across formats, we now have a real opportunity to innovate and create differentiated experiences of the news across formats that will excite all of us, from producers to consumers of news.”
Curley also said that AP immediately would begin seeking feedback from members and customers.
Source: The Associated Press
Yes…legal proceedings in Italy do not have a bearing here except as an example. You might want to contact the Seattle Times to let them know you think they are wrong about the chilling effect legal decisions can have.
What I’m getting at is that if bloggers are either made to believe they must vet all information or are forced by lawsuits to do so, it will change the nature of how they proceed. Most don’t have deep pockets. Lawsuits against bloggers are on the rise and will increase as certain mainstream media goes behind paywalls and/or the AP itself takes action against them.
It’s tough enough to try and be a local news blogger. Imagine trying to pay an attorney just to defend yourself. If if you win (and it can take a LONG time)…you won’t really have won. While news of victory in a case like that will pass through the blogosphere, the mainstream media still has more money and a bigger megaphone.
And what kind of an example is that? That was a PROSECUTION by the Italian state prosecutor. Over privacy.
Not targeting a blogger, not over linking to a news site, not over copyright. Next time, pick a better example.
I’ll tell you what, when I see bloggers stop linking to news sites because somebody got sued, I’ll believe your alarmist attitude MAY have some validity.
Remember that lawsuit by Apple a couple of years ago against that blogger? They got slapped down, and while the blogger had to close down (he was just a college kid), Apple hasn’t sued another one, have they? They even had to pay legal fees, and had to reach an agreement with him rather than try to win via lawsuit.
And other sites that cover Apple rumors are just as hot as ever, and one even had the balls to offer $$$ for information!
Doesn’t sound like your fears are too well founded.
While some sites MAY try the paywall route, not many will, unless some one like Murdock gets it right and starts making money. Some HAVE tried it in the past, and failed miserably.
In the meantime, information is still free, news still is too.
Newspapers are still publishing, many with web sites that publish the exact same stories, sometimes earlier than the printed version! There’s a newspaper in Maryland that also has an online version – free with a subscription, or you can get it for $10 a month without a subscription – that’s an exact replica of the print version, ads and all. You can print the ads, too, including coupons. Nice for those that travel and like their daily newspaper, too.
Lots of newspapers allow links, hell, they can hardly stop it. Most of the time, they don’t even know about it. I can send links to folks via email all day long, is that copyright? Can I be sued over it?
I don’t think so, and sooner or later, IF someone tries, they’ll hit a blogger with the cash AND the balls to fight back (or a lawyer willing to work either pro bono or for a percentage of winnings) , and they’ll lose, because a link with a summary is not a violation of copyright, it’s fair use, and the courts’ll prove it.
On the few paysites for news that exist, most notably the Wall Street Journal (a Murdoch company ..btw that’s how it’s spelled) others DO link to stories…but they don’t provide open access to all their content. While financial news is a special case, there aren’t any bloggers that are paraphrasing Journal stories or linking to blocked content (except to the short synopsis versions).
Why, if this information “wants to be free” and presumably someone with a subscription to the WSJ can cut and paste the content to a thousand sites is no one doing this?
You would think this highly valuable information would draw well heeled advertisers eager to reach an audience that, given the free status of the information would flock to it?
My sole point in this exercise is this and ultimately it’s agreement with you rwahrens…
Scarcity drives up value. The iPad has the potential to move a LOT of content behind APP based paywalls, driving up that scarcity. Since the newspapers are doing the bulk of the actual reporting in most places if enough of them (and the AP especially) go into a “harder to copy” mode where searches on stories produce primarily links to half written blogs, synopses, and lower quality content (poor photos, shaky video from the sidelines and flat wrong information) then paywalls will look like a great idea. Scarity will have made an at least partial comeback.
As I mentioned previously, ‘fast twitch’ facts…ie; the score of the game, Michael Jackson’s Dead!, There’s an earthquake in Chile! will forever more be spread instantly. Cell phone videos and emails, tweets and personal accounts will only increase.
But consistent, in depth, cogent thinking, based on institutional memory that is a journalism organization’s heritage will come from those who can afford to provide it. If they can’t because they don’t make enough money, we will get less, we will get it wrong, whatever we get will be skewed by partisans (many believe it is already) or driven by cold governmental calculus.
So…I’m HOPING that we can preserve the best of what newspapers and other larger scale journalism organizations actually do by making it worth their while to do it.
There are thought pieces out now suggesting that the government subsidize journalism. See this book
The Death and Life of American Journalism by Robert McChesney and John Nichols. In fact this was part of the thought process of our founding fathers who recognized that a free press was vital to a functioning democracy. They DID subsidize it through special postal rates. But that is just not going to happen.
So…again, my hope is that the great gaping maw of the public appetite to get everything handed to them for nothing can be at least partially closed so that we can preserve the larger scale journalism organizations and not see the process of information gathering and consumption fall to a constantly shifting army of individual voices all bleating at one another.
I don’t think we’ll lose the large scale operations. CNN, ABC, etc., seem to be getting along just fine. Their web presence is just another division which will be supported by the larger operation.
The WSJ is a speciality outfit that has a large loyal following because of their special financial focus who can expense that cost, where most Americans can’t.
But maybe there will be a few larger speciality shops emerge. I don’t have a lot of confidence in current leaders in the industry, they don’t seem to have the vision it takes to break into a new business model. Maybe the next generation of executives will.
@ PR
“On the few paysites for news that exist, most notably the Wall Street Journal (a Murdoch company ..btw that’s how it’s spelled)”
Actually, The Wall Street Journal is the correct spelling and in fact is registered as such, i.e., ®
@MDMac…I was referring to MURDOCH whose name is spelled that way..and not Murdock
@RWAhrens
There’s no reassurance that CNN or ABC will continue to operate as high level news organizations. ABC in fact just announced last week major cutbacks (or streamlining as they called it).
Having been in the news business literally all my life (well over 50 years) when you see the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post Intelligencer essentially fold up their tent it’s clear that the economics are not there. The online only version of the P.I. is struggling. Other large news organizations are in serious decline.
Another northwest online only publication Crosscut recently announced it’s non profit status because the online ads could not produce enough revenue to support a large news gathering staff.
Newspapers have always been where the great bulk of news reporting has been done. The Pew Research study only confirms this…
http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/how_news_happens
but you may find this essay of interest. We are clearly at 1500 again and answers are not clear. This piece was written almost a year before the iPad was released but contains some valuable insights.
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/
As I mentioned:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/abc-news-to-cut-half-its-domestic-correspondents-shut-down-all-bureaus-except-washington.html
I would counter with this piece:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2360777,00.asp
Just because a few sites are having trouble doesn’t mean that they ALL are, as you allude. Some, like other businesses, make bad management decisions, fail to take advantage of economies of scale or just plain spend too much damn money. Some have been known to have borrowed too much money. Some are failing to adjust to a new medium.
New technology always makes an industry go through an adjustment period. Some adjust to the new reality, some do not. This is NOT a bad thing, it flushes out the old codgers that can’t understand how to deal with it and makes room for the newer innovators. This uncertainty always takes the shakier ones first, because they have little in the way of reserves to stave off the hard times that come with it.
Those that do and have the innovative skills and vision to adjust, can prosper. It just takes time, and is not something to fret over.
The Internet is here, and as the piece I linked to notes, news is a social thing. It always has been, we just had to do the social part offline before the Internet gave us the ability to be social as part of a wider net.
Once upon a time, you and I would have had this discussion over a beer at a local pub. Today, we can do it while doing other things, either at work, or at home or on the run.
But we’re still talking about news, and we have to get it from somewhere. As long as that demand exists, somebody will satisfy it. The only question is, who, and how.
You are missing my point entirely.
As primary news collectors decline, it reduces everything in aggregate. If you actually read the Pew study, you will learn that as on the ground news reporting declines, we tend to rely more heavily on government or the police (which is the government after all) for the “official” account. So…if five American cities were to lose their daily newspaper in the next few years, go ahead and pick a city (other than the five largest), and imagine having to rely on government offices, and personal blogs for news from those places. Or if it’s a big story, you might get a version of it from FOX News who has a regional correspondent.
The idea that “somebody will satisfy it” as far as news demand goes ignores the fact that it costs money to do that and that many, many stories will never be the product of the local blogger, or accidental witness. You might think that there is nothing special or unique about a professional journalism organization. Believe me, there is.
The scale, (and as I said, “institutional memory”), ability to stay on a story, work sources, vet facts, and tell a story in depth is in fact what organizations like that do. If they fail, your understanding, and in fact your awareness are diminished.
So…as I will say again, I’m hoping the iPad will create a kind of protected “safe space” for that kind of journalism to continue by making the economics make sense.
Right now, online ads in terms of their ability to support the kind of reporting newspapers do on a daily basis, just can’t.
Ok, one last time:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100228/2356308330.shtml
I read it…and all the comments. The article is rather poorly written and makes a lot of assumptions.
I can tell you only this:
Online advertising produces 1/40th the revenue of print for the same reader…
If the newpaper business in question has all it’s operating costs in place and you say ok…STOP the print side (where all the actual money comes from) and now pay your people, and other ongoing expenses with 1/40th the amount of money.
It simply WILL NOT HAPPEN.
So…they fold.
The most amusing (if in a macabre way) comments say “good riddance” assuming that all the FREE sources out there will pick up the slack.
Yes you will still hear about traffic, and sports, and weather. You will hear a lot government generated stories. You will get the official version as produced by the media officers of various agencies. But the erosion of the informed voice will be a huge loss for us as a nation.
If you truly trust the government to always tell you the truth, to give you insight into what the story means, and if you can get by on a media diet of tweets and postings from your facebook friends then you will be doing real fine.
But for a functioning democracy we are completely misunderstanding how what has worked for 200 years has served us and we are imagining that the network of individuals will be a suitable replacement. I’m telling you it won’t.
You apparently didn’t read it that well. He’s not saying stop the print side. He says clearly that online ads aren’t that lucrative.
There’s a Journal newspaper in our area (that also prints a lot of local papers, all around the East Coast), that throws those free newspapers, just like the one commenter noted. Every house gets one. For free. You can also read them online.
It’s been in business in our area for as long as I’ve been here, over twenty years.
Local news. Free to readers. Ad supported, obviously, as well as classifieds. I’d say that they demonstrate his point very well, as they are obviously giving somebody enough value that they are willing to pay them for the advertising.
I still say you are being pessimistic. Lots of local papers are doing fine, living online too. Sure, some are going out of business, but all industries have failures, and in times of technological turmoil, that’s no surprise. The weaker ones WILL fail, as they are the ones most poorly managed.
But in the long run, the stronger ones that are willing to adjust to the new technology and economic realities of the industry will survive.
It won’t look the same, it won’t work the same, but it WILL provide people with what they want – news, entertainment and local goings on, in a format and in a media that they want it in. Whether they will pay for it directly or through some unknown mechanism, who knows? But the economic void WILL get filled.
http://adage.com/globalnews/article?article_id=142319
people are going to pay…and surprise…they already are