Blathnaid Healy » Associated Press

Publish2 launches ‘new Associated Press’

Blathnaid Healy — Tue, 25 May 2010 23:21:56 +0000

Publish2 has launched a news exchange in an attempt to replace what the Associated Press has up-to-now offered newspapers.

From what I gather Publish2 will provide a market place for newspapers to share their own content or use/buy content from publications, journalists, bloggers and other sources.

CEO Scott Karp outlines his vision:

Publish2 News Exchange solves the problems that have prevented newspapers from creating an efficient, scalable alternative to the AP. We bridge the gap between print publishing and Web publishing by connecting natively to outdated newspaper print publishing systems. We support the standard formats used by the AP and the technologies that newspapers already use to move content between print and Web systems. Our self-serve permissioning system enables newspapers and other publishers to distribute content to whomever they choose on whatever terms they choose.

Publish2 explains more about its offering here and Director, News Innovation, Ryan Sholin gives his views.

I understand the dilemma both newspapers and the AP are experiencing, but I’m not convinced this is the solution (here’s one small reason why: newspapers know they can trust the AP, part of the reason they pay so much for it, while Publish2′s editorial standards are a little lighter. How is it going to guarantee quality?).

Is Publish2 not getting ahead of itself believing it can replace the AP? Does it have to be a rival product?

I’m still thinking over Publish2, but in a comment on TechCrunch’s article, Topix’s Chris Tolles makes a very good point – the newspaper industry owns the AP. Another commenter points to a similar offering from the AP itself.

Think I’ll have to take the tour,

Tough road ahead for AP

Blathnaid Healy — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:28:14 +0000

Publishing its new pricing structure this week, the Associated Press has been criticised by some of its newspaper members, David Kaplan writes over on paidContent.org.

Having concluded a drawn-out battle between the AP and member papers over next year’s change in fee structure, a handful of newspapers are expressing betrayal at the AP’s increased interest in cultivating Yahoo and Google —for an entity that was started 162 years ago by a band of New York newspapers—some members are acting like they’ve suddenly been disowned by the family patriarch.

Newspapers used to make up half of the AP’s members, but now they’re at 27% and by next year will drop 2% to a quarter.

The question is how do they keep the old guard happy while pushing ahead with online, which they need to do to survive?

I’ll have to ponder that one over the weekend!

Associated Press fair use battle

Blathnaid Healy — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:41:35 +0000

Earlier this month, the Associated Press sent a letter to the Drudge Retort blog asking them to remove quotations. Specifically it asked the blog to remove seven sections which contained quotations ranging from 39 to 79 words in length. The news agency is now considering its position on blogs.

NYT’s article

paidContent.org’s update

Jeff Jarvis’ take on what the future holds for the AP here

Have a look at Alexander Wolfe’s take on it also

Michael Arrington has been out and about on this over at TechCrunch

The stories over the weekend were bad enough – the Associated Press, with a long history of suing over quotations from their articles, went after Drudge Retort for having the audacity to link to their stories along with short quotations via reader submissions. Drudge Retort is doing nothing different than what Digg, TechMeme, Mixx and dozens of other sites do, and frankly the fact that they are being linked to should be considered a favor.

Some of this is fair enough, but saying that the AP should consider being linked to by blogs a favour…he can’t actually be serious!