Get your AP - direct
There is, as expected, lots of bluster and a few good points around the blogs today on AP's introduction of its digital rights management plan, especially AP head Tom Curley's quote in the Times that suggests the wire service will expect some kind of toll for even using a headline and linking. (Get a slightly different take on this from CJR.)
If nothing else, ya gotta love the graphic (nice use of metaphor and symbolism with that box there).
Among all the bluff and bluster are some references to AP's lack of a "home" news site (as opposed to the corporate site), largely ascribed to its members' desires to keep any traffic to AP copy on their own sites.
Not so.
AP has a home site (buried inside AP.org) on which it even sells some ads (I'm not sure the AP is actually selling those; it's as likely they are remnant inventory, but still, I wonder if there's any money coming in.) There are even RSS feeds.
Why don't you hear much about it? Well, yes, in part it is that member thing. But it's worth keeping the record straight and knowing it's there.
posted by Doug @ 8:26 PM
3 comments|
3 Comments:
Doug,
Unless they changed their model since I was a client - and they may well have - that "hosted" site is a service for newspaper clients. The paper's site points to AP's hosted site for national and international news; the AP sells the ads but as I remember - and I'm not sure about this - it shares revenue or avails with the member site. I think that if you come to it through a member site, you get member branding. Or at least it was something like that back in the day. AP later updated its products so member sites could put modules of such content on their own sites rather than having to point to the AP's.
My point is that you're right in the end, the members still don't allow the AP to build a strong consumer brand and ad presence that would enable the AP to exploit the advantages of the link economy.
Jeff:
Yes, it is on the "hosted" server. I just wanted to point out, however, that it is possible to go around the member branding and direct to the non-branded site (and the RSS feeds).
AP's had that up as a little experiment (I'm told) for some time, possibly trying to figure out if an "AP.com" would work - or at least to have it ready should the AP decide going on its own was the way..
Thanks for the advice, Doug. It is good to know and keep under your hat.
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